


The Amazing Annabeth is Not on Fire

by cease_fire



Category: Annabeth Chase - Fandom, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Phan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, Youtubers, dan and phil, percy jackson - Fandom
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2018-12-25 07:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 26,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12031521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cease_fire/pseuds/cease_fire
Summary: Dan thinks he is being a good samaritan when he decides to help out a girl having a panic attack in a park. Little does he know the ramifications of investing in the life of Annabeth Chase.  (Some of the actual Dan and Phil timeline may may be messed up as well as the geography of England, just roll with it)rights for all PJO characters go to Rick Riordan, plot is mineThis was originally published by me on wattled under a different title





	1. The Girl on the Bench

Dan knew a panic attack when he saw one. He used to get them all the time as a teenager, they sucked, Worse than sucked, they were pure torture. Especially when the person having one was by themselves and far from home. It was for these reasons Dan was drawn to the blonde girl sitting on a park bench partially doubled over so that she was staring at her knees, breathing quickly and shallowly. Every muscle in her body seemed tense, and each breath seemed to be a struggle. Dan knew a panic attack when he saw one, and this girl was definitely having one. 

In any other circumstance Dan's social anxiety would never entertain the notion of approaching a perfect stranger, it would unfathomable. But looking at this girl paralyzed by fear, knowing the hell she was going through and how alone and afraid she must feel struck a cord in him too strong to ignore. He felt almost numb walking towards her, as if the world around him was a simulation of reality, maybe if he turned around Eliza Pancakes would be stalking him from behind the trees. This wasn't him, he didn't talk to people he didn't know, this was a mistake, he should just turn around now- "Are you ok?" his mouth acted before he could command himself to retreat. He was standing directly in front of her now, in her curled up position Dan's six foot four body seemed to tower over her. The girl didn't respond instead descending deeper into the black hole of her mind, her breathing getting more shallow. At this rate she would hyperventilate if she didn't calm down soon. Who could blame her, having an insanely tall stranger start asking her questions was probably doing nothing to sooth her. Seeing this reaction almost inspired Dan to leave, clearly he was only making things worse, but again his empathy got the better of him. He was here now, and couldn't just leave her to faint alone in a park. Squatting down to appear less intimidating he tried again, this time reaching a hand out and placing it on her bicep. "Hi, I'm Dan. Can you tell me your name?" Again the girl let out no audible reply, instead shaking her head. Not much, but progress. "Ok, is there someone I can call for you maybe?" This time she let out a silent but noticeable sob before shaking her head no. 

It dawned on Dan the panic attack may be more intense than he originally thought. "Can you speak?" The girl lifted her head to reveal her face distorted by tears, her lips were puffy and red, their colour strangely accented by her red rimmed eyes which where surrounded by eyelashes stuck together by the salt water leaking from her tear-ducts. All of that paled in comparison however to her eyes themselves, which were the most intense grey Dan had ever seen. As though he were staring into a hurricane, and despite the anguish they conveyed, just as intimidating as the oncoming storm their colour mimicked. Meeting his eyes it seemed to dawn on the grey-eyed girl that Dan understood what she was going through, and was genuinely trying to help. She didn't need to shake her head this time, Dan knew the painstaking answer to his question. 

Crap. Now what? Leaving her was completely out of the question, and she wasn't able to communicate with Dan where she lived, or what he could do to help. The attack seemed too intense to snap her out of, Dan had only ever had two this bad and the only way he had recovered was to sleep for hours on end. Something that was not a practical option in the middle of Hyde Park. Not to mention calming her down enough to even get to the point of sleep would be a challenge in itself. Of the two panic attacks he'd experienced at this level the only people able to remotely calm him down had been an ER doctor from when his parents had been so worried they took him to a hospital during his teenage years. That and Phil, the day he decided to drop out of university. Wait, that was it, Phil! He was home today editing, not more than fifteen minutes from the park. A drastic idea popped into Dan's head, so drastic in fact he could already see the next 'danectdote' video emerging as a result. 

"Listen, my apartment is really close by, and my boyfriend Phil, he's really good at dealing with stuff like this. Why don't you come with me and we'll get you sorted out there." This was it the moment he was so creepy that she would break free of her spell of terror and yell "pervert" until the police arrested him. Great going Dan. Not to mention he'd just admitted to Phil being his boyfriend to a person he knew nothing about, he'd done it in the hopes that implying he was gay would make her more comfortable with the idea. But now he just felt like an idiot, she could be a subscriber, a shipper or even a homophobe and he had just acknowledged not only that he was gay but had managed to drag Phil into it to. Stupid Dan, Stupid. Bracing himself for the worst he fixated on her face, mentally scrambling to come up with a way to recover from what was sure to be the biggest mistake he had ever made and by far the most awkward situation he would ever put himself in. 

It took him a second to register the fact the girl wasn't instantly repelled by the idea, rather she seemed to be contemplating her options. The next few microseconds were the longest of Dan's life, awaiting her decision. She wouldn't go for it, it was such a bad idea, phrased in such a sketchy way, he might as well be driving around 8-Mile Detroit in a while windowless van offering kids candy. For a moment he was so lost in his thoughts he didn't notice her moving. Immediately regaining focus, he couldn't believe his eyes. The girl was very subtly nodding. He was in shock, had this girl no street smarts? Her eyes had seemed too intelligent for that to be the case, and yet she was agreeing to let him bring her to his flat. "Uh okay, here let me help you up", moving to put her arm around him in order to support her Dan couldn't help but be surprised at how muscular she was. Sure she was tense but that was wasn't it, not fully. This girl had serious muscle concealed under her slim figure, like one might find in a ballerina or a circus performer. Uncurling from her sitting position she leaned nearly all her weight on Dan, barely able to stand on her own. He was about to start walking when the girl held back for a moment, to grab an art tube she had been sitting in front of protectively. "you good?" Again she nodded no more noticeably than the last time 

"Alright, c'mon I live just over this way" Dan said trying to sound reassuring "everything is going to be ok, I'll look after you I promise" and with that the panicked girl and the anxious youtuber hobbled towards the apartment.


	2. The Apartment

"Phil! You home?"Dan shut the door with his foot as he half carried the girl in. She had been trembling the entire way to the flat which hadn't made the trip any less difficult. Please, phil don't be wearing headphones, Dan thought to himself, please please hear me. Amazingly his prayers were answered, "yeah, just editing" a loud but distant voice came from down the hall. "Can you come here a sec, please" Dan struggled to concealed the strain in his voice cause by the girl's weight. 

Apparently he was failing miserably at that objective. "Sure, is something wrong? your voice sounds funny", Phil emerged from the hallway looking like he had just got out of bed despite it being two in the afternoon. He was wearing his favourite pyjamas, a pair of green plaid flannel sweat pants and a light blue v-neck shirt. His hair was a uncombed disaster, the result of which was a mess of a fringe covering his entire forehead and sticking up in strange places. All this combined with the fact he hadn't bothered to put his contacts in and instead was wearing his oversized dorky glasses presented a gentle aura of approachability and kindness. Thank the lord for that. Dan could think of nothing worse than phil trying to calm someone down while dressed in his illuminati t-shirt and blacked ripped jeans. 

Phil didn't register the ordeal in front of him immediately as he was busy rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses and yawning "Dan, whats going on?" done massaging his pupils Phil readjusted his glasses and dropped his hands to his sides, able to fully view the situation for the first time. His face immediately changed from relaxed to horrified. "Oh my gosh, what happened?" he asked, rushing over to Dan in order to help support their new house guest. 

Relieved from the weight of the girl on his shoulders Dan took a deep breath, "No idea, I found her in the park like this. Looks like a panic attack of some sort, pretty intense I'm guessing seeing as she can't speak"

"So you decided to bring her home?" 

Dan was taken aback by the aggravation in his partner's voice, he began to open his mouth in order to form a response but Phil's gaze cut him off preemptively. This conversation definitely was not over, but right now he could tell Phil needed him to shut up. "Help me get her to the couch ok?" Dan nodded, doing as instructed. "Ok go grab the duvet off my bed will you?" Phil looked up at him, it was less of a request and more of a demand. Normally Dan would take more offence to Phil treating him like a servant but he doubted his boyfriend was even aware of the manner in which he was speaking. When Phil was worried about someone's well being it became all that mattered to him, everyone else's feelings were no longer relevant. Dan didn't really mind this, Phil's intense concern for someone whether or not he knew them was one of the things Dan loved about him. Not wanting to aggravate the makeshift therapist Dan ran off to get the Duvet. 

He couldn't have been gone more than two minutes and yet when Dan re-entered the lounge Phil already seemed to have control over the situation. He was kneeling in front of the trembling girl, making constant eye contact while talking her through a breathing exercise known as box breathing. The voice he was using was not too dissimilar than the one he used for ASMR, a bit more relaxing though, less creepy. Recognizing Dan's return to the scene he nodded and silently indicated dan put the blanket over his patient. Almost immediately she grabbed the edges of the bed cover and pulled it tightly around her tense body. "Good" Phil continued, "how are you feeling now? can you show me?" Now wrapped up like a burrito the girl stuck one hand out of the covers horizontally and shook it. The universal symbol for better, not great. Phil nodded "Okay do you feel at all like sleeping?" again the girl wobbled her hand. "Well why don't you try for me" he took her hand and helped her get up, making sure to pull the duvet back over her shoulders as he did so. Slowly walking her into his room, he stopped at the outside of his door frame, "you can use this room for as long as you need, Theres a lock on the inside, so you don't need to worry about me or Dan doing anything questionable. If you need anything feel free to come out and get me. Got it?" Dan couldn't see her response but he assumed it was positive seeing as after that Phil proceed to once again encouraged her to sleep before shutting the door. Relieved that the girl was going to be okay he turned his attention the the next impending crisis, Phil's reaction to the days unexpected twist.

The raven hair, pyjama clad man walked straight into the living room and plonked himself down in the comfiest chair their apartment contained, a old worm leather armchair taken from a curb in Manchester. "What the hell were you thinking Dan? Bringing a random person into our flat? Even worse taking a panicked girl from a park, we could be outed or arrested for abduction." His tone was stern but his face wasn't angry, It was baffled. Baffled that Dan could be so careless.

Hanging his head in acknowledgement of his own stupidity Dan took his designated place in the sofa crease across from Phil. "I Know, But I didn't know what else to do. She was clearly in distress and I couldn't just leave her. And I just... I knew what she was going through and didn't want her to be alone and you were the only person I could think of who was any good at dealing with stuff like this." Dan stared at his shoes which he hadn't bothered to remove upon entry into the house, "I'm sorry Phil, I screwed up, and now I don't know what I can do about it."

Phil's expression seemed to soften upon hearing Dan's explanation and following apology, as if suddenly empathizing with the fear he must be feeling. Moving over to the couch he sat himself next to dan and pulled him into a hug. "Okay, I get it, you freaked out and did the first thing that came into your head, I understand. For the record I'm really proud of you for approaching her in the first place, I know that wasn't easy for you." 

Letting out a shaky breath, Dan rested his head on Phil's shoulder. Phil wasn't angry, thank goodness, he hated when they fought, even after the conflict was resolved the argument would bother him for weeks after. "I'll find a way to deal with whatever the consequences of this are I promise. This one is on me to fix."

Phil lightly kissed the top of Dan's head before putting his head on top of the brown haired man's and pulling him closer, "first off, we don't know yet if theres anything to fix yet, and if there is we handle it together. We've tried dealing with these things separately before, and it doesn't bide well for either of us. Whatever happens we'll weather it, that I'm sure of." 

Snuggling his shoulder into the crook of Phil's arm Dan couldn't help be remark on how lucky he was to have such a level headed and forgiving boyfriend. "Have I told you how much I love you lately?"

"Don't need to" Phil replied "Dan just promise me one thing"

"What?"

"Next time you run into someone having a panic attack dial 999" 

Dan let out a laugh, curling up fully on the sofa "Alright Dr. Phil, I promise"


	3. How Stupid Can I Be

Annabeth woke up with a start, demigod dreams were never exactly soothing. Eyes still closed she instinctively reached out for the art tube witch magically contained her sword, the one she'd gotten in tartarus which she kept with her at all times. Instead of the round plastic weapon containing cylinder container she was expecting to encounter, her hand was met by the hard flat texture of a wooden beside table. Immediately Annabeth went into over drive, sitting straight up, eyes flung open taking in her surroundings. Where was she? how did she get here? What had happened to her sword? These questions began to answer themselves as the memories came flooding back: panic attack, park, nice man (had Dan been his name?), this was his apartment, he had that partner Phil with black hair who had calmed her down. Thinking back on it all she couldn't believe how weak and stupid she had been. She, Annabeth Chase had been caught crying in a park unable to recover, in need of rescue. What was wrong with her, she had used to be so strong, running away from home at seven, finding the Athena Parthenon by herself, fighting Kronos for godssake. Now look what tartarus had done to her, she was a scared trembling mess of person, unable to stay calm in the safest of situations. Plus she'd been an absolute moron and agreed to go home with a man she had never met, not only that she'd let him disarm her. Her hand moved to her right pocket, she could still feel the outline of her dagger within, which had been disguised by the mist to appear as a swiss army knife. Well maybe not completely disarm her, still it was shameful how easily she'd been lured into what was almost surely a trap. 

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed she pulled the dagger out of her pocket, if this was a trap then you could be damn sure she was going to put up more of a fight getting out than she had getting in. If it turned out not to be (which was extremely unlikely) then she needed to leave as soon as possible, unnoticed with any luck, Dan and Phil would never see her again. Annabeth would merely be a strange anomaly in their lives, a conundrum never to be solved. Walking towards the door she had already begun to create a mental outline of the apartment and the fastest route out. Hiding the dagger behind her back, Annabeth unlocked the door, and proceeded to walk down the hallway towards the kitchen/lounge area, stopping at the end of the corridor. One of the two men (monsters?) was already up, Dan it looked like, though she could be wrong. They were both tall men with fringes from 2006 it was easy enough to get them mixed up. He hadn't noticed her yet, good, she was determined to keep it that way. She spotted her sword leaning against the sofa in the lounge just across from the kitchen, separated only by an eating bar. No easy way to get to it without being seen. Quickly assessing her options Annabeth settled on the most promising strategy to retrieve the weapon in question. Placing the dagger back into her pocket she studied Dan's movements carefully watching as her perceived opponent began to turn his back fully away from hall to access the fridge. 

It was then Annabeth chose to make her move, silently running across the front hall she dove under the eating bar before the brown fringed boy had time to turn around. Staying on her hands and knees she began to carefully crawl over to the couch, reaching it in what seemed like record time. She needed to grab the art-tube and get the hell out of there, with one seamless and concise movement Annabeth had the sword in her possession. Racing back under the eating bar she began to formulate the next half of her plan. No longer being able to see Dan meant any attempt to reach the front door would be an incredibly risky maneuver, yet there didn't seem to be any other available exits. Front door it was then. Attempts to listen for Dan's footsteps proved fruitless, Annabeth was left with no other option than to make a run for it and pray to Zeus she wasn't noticed. Counting to three to prepare herself, Annabeth bolted for the door.

"Look who's up" Annabeth froze in place mid bolt, Dan was looking straight at her smiling, "didn't see you come in, want breakfast?" She had two options now, either continue running or stay and eat. If this was indeed a trap running would give her a better chance of escape, if it wasn't a trap and Dan was actually human, well she was, in fact, starved. 

"What are you having?" She questioned, desperately trying to buy herself time to decide. Annabeth glanced around the apartment, nothing seemed out of place. She was typically pretty good at seeing through the mist. After the battle with Gaea, Hazel had begun teaching demigods how to see through it in order to help the greeks and romans better detect each other. Was it possible the man in front of her was actually mortal?

"Store bought muffins and tea. When Phil gets up there'll be coffee, but I don't recommend caffeine the morning after panic attacks" Dan motioned to one of the stools tucked into the eating bar. "C'mon if we were going to hurt you we'd have done it by now, don't be shy" He added, picking up on her apprehension. Every part of Annabeth's brain was telling her to run, but something in her gut made her want to trust Dan. He did have a point about not killing her and she could really use a muffin right about now. Going against every logical thought in her head she slid unto the stool. 

"You sound American" Dan observed placing two muffins in a microwave and setting the timer, before turning to look back at her 

"Thats because I am American" Annabeth countered, meeting Dan's hazel eyes with confidence for the first time. "You sound British, presumably because you are" 

Dan laughed resting his elbows on the eating bar counter, "Alright American, I don't suppose you have any more information about your identity other than your country of origin?"

"Like?" 

The microwave beeped causing Dan to leave his position on the counter to tend to it, "Oh I don't know, how bout a name", he put the muffins on a plate and sitting them in-between him and Annabeth 

The daughter of Athena tensed for a moment, she had already taken a risk choosing to remain in the flat, did she really want to start disclosing more information? Again however she got the irrational overwhelming feeling Dan was a genuinely nice person. "Annabeth" She stated flatly, praying to the gods she wasn't going to regret her decision.

"Annabeth, personally I like American better" He took one of the muffins and proceed to absolutely slather it in butter. "So Annabeth" he said her name as though he had tasting each individual letter in his mouth, "what brings you to our fine country?"

At this point Annabeth knew she had decided Dan was human. She might as well try to appear as one too and act as normal as possible. "School" she replied, "I'm studying the history of architecture at oxford"

Dan looked impressed "nice, I heard you need to get pretty high grades to get into that, I assume your living on campus then?" He looked down at the plate before him, "Excuse me, you haven't even touched your muffin yet, and I put effort into microwaving that" 

Cracking a smile Annabeth took the muffin and shook her head, "No actually I'm not. I couldn't afford res, but it turns out people actually pay you to look after their houses while they're away, so I do that instead" 

"What? So you just move from house to house throughout the year, no set location?" Dan seemed shocked at the concept "do you just live out of a suit case or something?" 

"Pretty much" Annabeth managed to say in between bites of what was turning out to be a very good muffin, "it's not that bad, you get used to it" 

Dan stared at her in astonishment "How do you ensure your safety? Do you have someone keeping track of where you stay and for how long?" 

Annabeth flinched, she hated when people asked about her personal life, especially in London, any answer she gave only served to remind her of how alone she was in the city. "I make sure I'm safe, its not that hard, just gotta use basic reason and instinct"

"Right and I assume it was that basic reason and instinct in what caused you to think it was a good idea to go home with a random dude you met in a park" a smirk crept across dans face, clearly enjoying his role as comedian. His mocking of her didn't last long sadly for him, as soon after the remark Annabeth shot him a glare so intense the smirk vanished instantly replaced with a look of horrified sobriety. "So you seriously have no one looking out for you? No one you might need to call to let know your ok?" Her lack of a response seemed to be all the confirmation he needed, "Ok well you must have people back in the States, family perhaps?" 

Struggling to withhold laughing at the notion of having family that actually cared for her Annabeth put the remaining half muffin down "I see my mother maybe once a year, if at all and she typically tells me that she can't accept me as her real daughter unless I do her some sort of massive favour. My father and I haven't spoken since I graduated highschool last year and I intend to keep it that way." She took a deep breath, once again glaring at Dan "So no, I don't have a loving family back in the homeland" 

"What about friends, everybody has friends" 

Annabeth shrugged "Yeah, but they all have their own problems, no need for them to worry about me." She thought of Jason and Piper who were currently traveling around the world together in order find as many minor gods as possible. Or Frank and Hazel, Busy helping to heal the rift Octavian had created in New Rome. And Leo, well she'd heard rumours he was alive and out frolicking with his girlfriend Calypso, but if he was he clearly hadn't bothered to drop in and say hello. She was the strong one among her friends, people didn't worry about her because they didn't think they needed to. They were all under the impression she could handle herself, as they should be, no need to burden them with her problems. 

Dan threw his hands into the air "Surely someone in this world cares about you!" he exclaimed "I refuse to believe a person can be completely unloved in this world"

"I have a boyfriend, Percy" Annabeth stared down at her hands trying to hide the fact she was blushing at the mention of him "he cares" 

"Who cares?" Phil entered the kitchen looking rather groggy 

"Miss America's boyfriend apparently" Dan stuck a thumb in Annabeth's direction 

"Miss America?!" Annabeth began to object to the nickname, before realizing it was to no avail Dan was no longer listening. Rather he was walking towards Phil, arms slightly extended as if he were about to wrap them around the other man's waist.

"Dan" Phil muttered under his breath, stopping him. He took a step away from his boyfriend. Awkwardly motioning to Annabeth with his eyes, clearly implying they were not alone.

"Oh no" Annabeth interrupted quickly, sensing the mood of interruption Phil felt she was emitting. "No judgement here, feel free to continue living you lives" 

Phil took a deep breath and swerved around Dan, heading straight for the coffee machine, "How are you feeling?" he asked trying to switch the subject 

"Better than yesterday thats for sure" Annabeth still had a bit of a headache from all the crying she'd done yesterday, but no real need to mention that. "Really and truly though I don't want to weigh you two down, its totally fine that your gay, I have some friends back home who are as well" The statement brought up stinging memories of Nico and Will, who she desperately missed. Ever since the Gaea battle Will had been helping Nico turn over a new leaf, which for Nico meant running from his past. Annabeth reminded him of that past, they hadn't even spoken to him since that day on the battlefield. Now he was just another person who thought she was fine. 

Phil swung around annoyed seemingly preparing to defend the allegations made towards his sexuality. Seeing the situation Dan quickly slid into the barstool next to Annabeth "Its ok Phil she knows, I told her yesterday in the park" 

Looking a strange mix of astonished and offended Phil stared at Dan for an uncomfortable amount of time mouth wide open, before eventually turning to Annabeth once again. "Do you know who we are" he asked in a much softer voice than she was expecting, yet still clearly angry. 

"No, and it occurs to me you haven't asked who I am either" Annabeth retorted in a much stronger and more confident voice than he had used. "Annabeth Chase, Pleasure to make your acquaintence" The last sentence came out more sourly than she had meant it to, not that she regretted choice. All this guy had done since walking in this morning was treat his boyfriend like shit, and attempt to lie to her. He hadn't earned her respect, not by a longshot. 

Despite trying to be as serious as possible a smile slipped through phil lips that he couldn't seem to make vanish. "No but in all seriousness, do you know who we are?"

Annabeth looked to Dan hoping he might assist in explaining the situation, to her dismay however he was focused just as intently on her as Phil was. Clearly awaiting her response. Racking her brain in search of any memory the strange pair of emos featured in with no luck, Annabeth was forced to resign herself to her original answer. "No, should I?"

Phil's face relaxed, "See" Dan said perching himself on the edge of her chair, leaning over the counter to give him a kiss on the cheek, "everythings fine"

Everything was definitely not fine, of that Annabeth was sure, anytime someone was happy to be unknown was a time they had something to hide. People who had something to hide never meant anything good for her. Memories of Luke began to flood Annabeth's head, desperately trying to clear her mind she chose to focus on the current situation "Who are you people? Why don't you want me to know who you are?" Despite her best attempts, Annabeth's voice cracked a little mid-question 

The transformation was almost instantaneous, in a matter of moments Phil went from the secretive jerk he'd been all morning to the same gentle soul who had calmed her yesterday. "No, no. Its not that we don't want you to know, it just that we don't want the world to know" He smiled sheepishly as if trying to apologize for his earlier actions, "we're youtubers, youtubers who just want to have private lives thats all" 

Youtube? What was that? Forcing herself to regain her composure Annabeth ran the word Phil had just uttered through the vocabulary of every language she understood trying to identify its meaning. Coming up with no answer she was left to ask, "what's a youtuber?"


	4. The Invitation

What's a youtuber? Phil was so concerned over upsetting Annabeth it took him a moment to register the absurdity of the question. It was pretty easy to accept she legitimately didn't know who he and Dan were, some people couldn't name a single youtuber if they tried. But the term itself was commonplace, it seemed impossible to not be aware of the concept in this day and age. Yet she seemed genuinely confused by the word, he looked over at Dan whose face expressed similar astonishment. "What's a youtuber, uh right. It's a person who makes money from posting videos on youtube" he answered 

Annabeth tilted her head to the left, appearing to be searching her brain for something "Youtube, thats the video sharing site with the red play icon for a logo right"

Dans jaw dropped, it took all of Phil's focus not to copy his action. Who was this strange girl his partner had brought home, with so little knowledge of the site which he made his living on. Even people with relatively low IQs knew what youtube was, how could she not. Part of Phil's brain began to panic fearing perhaps this had been a setup to get him and Dan to admit to their relationship by playing dumb, but even if that was true why take it this far? 

"I'm sorry, but how exactly do you not know fully what youtube is?" Dan interrupted Phil's thought process with a shrill voice he saved only for sarcasm. Phil excitedly waited for the exchange to play out. Dan could barely comprehend how people lived without data, meeting someone who couldn't name one of the biggest sites on the internet might break his brain. Phil quickly looked over to the hallway, empty, lots of room for Dan to have a existential crisis if he should need one.

"I don't use the internet", the blonde hair girl replied as if it was the most normal thing in the world "never have" 

It was now his turn to think of a response, seeing as Dan was merely making strange gagging noises. Phil studied Annabeth again, she seemed serious, but he could be wrong, he did barely know her afterall. But it wasn't possible, She looked only a few years younger than Dan, couldn't be more than twenty by any rate. How could she live in the 21st century for so long without using internet? There really was only one appropriate response, "That's impossible, Everyone goes on the internet"

His crystal blue eyes were met by her piercing grey, "I don't" 

"why not?"

Annabeth took a deep breath "I ran away from home when I was seven, and was taken in by this camp for troubled youth, where I've lived ever since. A lot of the kids there are hiding from abusive parents who will do anything to find them. So there's a rule, no internet of any sort, that way the camp stays protected from the monsters who the kids ran from"

Something was off about her answer, she seemed too forward. There had been some hesitancy about admitting she ran away but the rest of the response had been rapid fire information. Phil had been lucky enough to live in a loving home, but he assumed that most people with rough childhoods would go to greater lengths to disguise that fact. The eloquence and compactness of the answer also bothered Phil, it seemed as though it had been rehearsed before hand. Stranger even was the fact she had paused after right after saying monster, as if that word alone had meaning. There was some truth in her story perhaps, but Annabeth was holding something back. "We're you one of the kids who needed to be hidden?" 

"No", her answer was stone cold, and given with no hesitation

"Thats why you don't have anyone!" Dan exclaimed, as if something had clicked in his brain 

"Dan" Phil interjected "Don't be rude"

He pivoted to look at Phil "I'm not, I'm making sense.", Turning back to Annabeth he continued, "your friends from camp don't use the internet to avoid being found, so naturally you have no method to communicate with them in real time" his face slackened with a sudden realization "Oh gosh, if you don't use the internet how do you talk to your boyfriend?"

The final question seemed to cause the american physical pain, cringing as it was asked, "I don't, the last time I heard from Percy was three weeks ago in a letter. He probably hasn't even received my response yet." Her voice seemed smaller, for the first time since he woke up Phil felt as if he was seeing Annabeth rather than her defence system. 

Walking into the lounge he picked up a piece of paper from the table and scribbled on it quickly, "Do you have any sort of phone, doesn't have to have data, or wifi. Just anything that makes calls?"

"Only a 2003 Nokia that I keep for absolute emergencies" 

"a 2003 Nokia" Dan repeated in awe, staring at Annabeth as if she had suddenly grown antlers

"Here" Phil walked back over to the eating bar and handed her the piece of paper. "Those are Dan and my numbers, put them in your phone. 

She looked at him suspiciously, taking the paper, looking at it before sitting it down in front of her. "If you're so careful about not disclosing your personal life why are you giving me this"

"Because I'm guessing yesterday wasn't your first panic attack, and if like you say, truly don't have anyone to call, now you can call us." Annabeth was staring at him dumbfounded, Phil decided this meant he should continue, "Next time you feel like your going to breakdown ring one of us, we'll help you calm down or even come get you if we have too" 

"Also you know anyways now, and we are desperate for friends" Dan added helpfully

Annabeth looked from Phil to Dan, then back to Phil clearly uncomfortable with the offer, "I should go, I've taken up to much of your time. Thank you for all your help though, Really I do appreciate it. Nice meeting you" and with that she grabbed her Art tube and was out the door 

"Nice, work Phil" Dan walked into the lounge and assumed the browsing position "you scared her"

"Thats not fair" Phil exclaimed, "You don't creep her out with the whole 'come over to my house' and all I do is try to give her a number and she bolts never to be seen again" He took a bite of Annabeth's left over muffin, left sitting on the counter. 

"Oh I wouldn't say never to be seen again" Laptop already on his lap Dan began to lift the screen

"Yeah cause most people who intend on coming back leave in that much of a hurry" frustrated, Phil rolled his eyes, he hated the fact it had been him who scared her off. He had only wanted to help, honest. 

"Well typically people who plan not to be seen again don't take the phone number with them"

Phil looked where Annabeth had just been sitting, the phone numbers were gone.


	5. No Solution

Stupid. An absolute stupid moron, thats what she was. Annabeth angrily slammed the door to the apartment she was currently staying in and headed straight for the dining room table. What in Hades had compelled her to stay in their apartment that long? To tell them so much? Shaking her head she pulled out a blueprint of the Pantheon she was Studying for school, maybe doing work would clear her head. 

After five minutes of staring at letters which refused to align themselves she gave up, resting her head in her hands. What had she been thinking, she had a strict policy on humans: keep interaction to a minimum at all times. Not that she didn't like humans, but having relationship with them was incredibly complicated as a demigod, keeping track of the lies, knowing you were putting them in danger and they were unable to defend themselves. Nope, she couldn't do it, she worried enough about her demigod friends as is. Typically when humans wanted to be her friend she told them exactly what she had told Dan and Phil, that she was a runaway raised in a camp for troubled kids. Upon hearing this most people would distance themselves from her assuming Annabeth was dangerous person who'd been sent to juvie. Not Dan and Phil though, oh no, they had to go and take pity on her, assume this meant she needed more support, tried harder to befriend her. It almost made Annabeth want to give in and take them up on their offer of friendship, No. She was fine on her own. They wouldn't be able to help her anyways, She could never explain them why she got panic attacks, or refused to leave the house without an art tube strapped across her back. Better to be on her own.

Annabeth was really on her own. Ever since Tartarus the only person who fully understood her was Percy. When she had first moved to England last month they had iris messaged each other everyday for hours on end, it wasn't the same as being with him, but she hadn't felt so alone. Then the state of Alabama banned flying the rainbow pride flag, in some piece of horrible homophobic legislation. When the goddess Iris caught wind of this she begged the olympians to do more to protect her flag, but the twelve said they didn't want to interfere in human affairs and dismissed her. As a result Iris had gone on strike refusing to allow any one to message each other. Annabeth hadn't been lying when she said she hadn't heard from percy in three weeks, without iris messaging their only option was to physically write to each other. Since Iris's strike Annabeth had been floundering. As much as she hated to admit it, her panic attacks were increasing, and getting worse, she was constantly on edge. Everyday she felt like she was falling into tartarus all over again, but this time Percy wasn't coming with her to break her fall. 

That was the other reason she chose to have minimal interaction with human, they would never understand how much pain she was in. Other demigods looked at her and knew she was broken beyond repair, they accepted her scars and moved on. But humans were constantly optimistic always trying to fix her, make her whole again. She hadn't been whole since she had watched Luke stab himself to death with the dagger he had given her to represent family, no human could possibly the inner turmoil that plagued her with. Yet against all odds Dan had seemed to, she recalled looking into is eyes on that park bench and recognizing the pain they both shared, how could he possibly relate to that, to her constant sense of oncoming death and emotional agony? 

Rummaging through her pocket Annabeth pulled out the piece of paper Phil had written their numbers on. Above each phone number was the name of the man whom it belonged to. Phil Lester and Dan Howell. Leaving the paper on the table she got up and walked into her bedroom, returning to the table with Daedalus's laptop, the one thing she had managed to retrieve from the pits of hell. Opening it up she searched the names before her, Dan's info page came up first, then Phil's, they were in fact public figures through youtube, dating since 2009. Dan struggled with purely obsessional OCD which cause him to constantly worry about his impending death and the meaning of life. He also had violent intrusive thoughts and ruminated over events that had taken place years in the past. Neither had ever come out as publicly gay, but had a rabid fanbase who believed them to be together. By all accounts they were good people, with good human lives, lives that didn't deserve to be disturbed by Annabeth and her half-blood problems. She closed the laptop, and picked up the paper, throwing it in the garbage, she refused to call on them. Her adventures with Dan and Phil had definitively come to a close, never to continue. 

Having solved the crisis Annabeth turned her attention back to the blueprint on the table, this time intent on keeping it there. In the back of her brain however a question lingered, A question she was desperately trying to ignore the answer to. If she had another attack of that severity in public what was she going to do? The immediate answer was nothing, when the attacks became that bad they evolved into flashbacks. She'd barely been aware of Dan's presence when he first approached her, all she had been aware of has how alone and scared the Arai had made her feel that first day in Tartarus. Certain that everyone had abandon her and she was growing father and farther away from hope. It had taken all of Annabeth's strength just to notice Dan. If she had another attack like that she wouldn't be able to get herself home, she would have a few seconds at most before fear completely swallowed her. Just enough time to hit speed dial... No, calling them was not an option. "What other options do you have" her mind asked, she'd said it herself, her attacks had only been growing more common and more serious, and she hadn't been lying when she told Dan she had no one. Dan and Phil were the only two people in the world who knew anything about her situation and would be able to do something to help in real time. They were her sole resort, as much as she didn't want to, she was forced to accept her predicament. 

Retrieving their phone numbers from the trash can, she hit the 'enter speed dial' button on her phone.


	6. Emo's Unite

By mid-July Annabeth had become quite common in Dan and Phil's life, which didn't bother Dan at all. The trio had become quite good friends actually, with Annabeth even coming over just to hang out sometimes. Dan had particularly enjoyed teaching her how to play sonic, and tons of other video games she had never even hear of. Not to mention having a third person around made filming videos so much easier. She'd been coming over much more in the summer, after she discovered she didn't have the money to fly home and had refused to take his and Phil's. Dan really felt for her, it must be hard to go that long without seeing the people you love.

"Dan? Hello, earth to Dan" snapping out of his thoughts Dan entered reality again to see Phil in front of him trying to set up a camera tripod, "Can you go get the mic from the gaming room please? I'm thinking if we duct-tape it to the camera that should work" 

"Right, of course" Dan replied getting up off the couch, he and Phil were setting up for a collab video on Daniel Howell, well kind of. The reality was it was twelve o'clock at night neither of them could sleep and decided to make a video that might be such trash it would never see the light of day. "Got it, grabbed the duct-tape too", returning to the living room to assist phil in the last stage of the setup. 

"looks good, have you finished making the playlist yet?" 

"Please Phil, I've had this playlist ready for years" Dan placed his laptop strategically under the duct-taped mic. "Alright do you want to start filming?" Before Phil could respond there was a knock at the door, "guess not" Dan rolled his eyes "Don't worry I'll get it"

Descending down the stairs to the front hall, it occurred to Dan it wasn't common for someone to knock on your door at midnight. It could be an axe murderer his brain informed him, shut up brain he thought, it wasn't an axe murderer. Probably. Approaching the front door Dan peered through the window before opening it, just incase it was actually an axe-murderer. Much to his relief his eyes were greeted to the sight of a tall blonde girl, standing outside holding an art tube. 

"Annabeth" Dan said opening the door "It's midnight what are you doing here?" 

"Sorry, I hope I didn't wake you up. It's just I can't sleep tonight and thought I'd see if you were up. I can leave if your sleeping." She looked upset, and disheveled, with dark circles under her red rimmed eyes, as if she'd been crying all night. She was wearing a crinkled red t-shirt with a black outline of a flying warship circled by the words "Argo II crew - 2015", her hair was pulled up into a messy pony tail. Judging by the grey sweat pants Dan was willing to be good money she had walked over in her pyjamas. 

"No, no its fine. Phil and I were about to start filming a video, come on I'll make hot chocolate" ushering her inside and closing the door, "so whats keeping you up?"

She shrugged "just one of those nights I guess. Whats the video about?" She definitely knew why she couldn't sleep. Dan wasn't stupid Annabeth had been his friend for months, he knew when she was keeping something from him. He didn't really mind though people where allowed to have their secrets.

"Wait and see, its gonna be fun. Have you heard of the band My Chemical Romance?" 

"Yes, why? - Oh hey Phil!" Annabeth strolled into the lounge and sat herself down on the sofa 

Phil looked rather befuddled to see the grey eyed student appear in his apartment "Well it is certainly a surprise to see you here"

Smiling she responded "well I decided that sleep was for the weak and I should come bother you guys instead" she stretched out across the sofa and rolling onto her stomach "now come on, you've kept me in the dark long enough, tell me about this video" 

Returning the smile Phil gazed at his partner "oh its only Dan's dream video"

"So whisk porn then?"

Upon hearing that answer Dan dropped his thankfully empty mug onto the floor, and turned to look Annabeth straight in the eye "NO, no that! 100% not that!" 

Phil smirked "oh, I don't know Dan, I kinda like the idea"

"I hate you both" Dan shook his head, handing Annabeth a hot chocolate before sitting in the broken leather chair "No we are not making whisk porn," He shuddered "we are going to be recording a Dan, Phil and Annabeth Dance to classic MCR songs"

"Wait and Annabeth? I'm going to be in this one?" Annabeth attempted to clarify. It occurred to Dan she had never actually featured in one of their videos before, despite being behind the camera quite a lot.

"Well yeah if you want to, do you like MCR? Can you actually be in videos on the internet with your camp rules and all?" Dan really hooped the answer to the second question was yes, just to avoid the social awkwardness of the other possibility

"Yes I do, and yes I can, but no I'm not " she looked very adamant in this decision 

"What about lip-syncing" Phil suggested, "are you familiar with their lyrics" 

"Are parades black?" Annabeth countered, a confident smirk on her face

"Ok sweet let's shoot the intro" Dan took a seat on the couch beside Annabeth, as did Phil on her opposite side. "Hey it just occurred to me your dressed really well for this"pointing to her red and black shirt." 

The American nodded and raised her eyebrows sarcastically whispering "its because I'm psychic" before turning to the camera as she had been.

Taking this as an all clear Dan turned on the camera and gave a big wave, "Hey there interntet so today I am here with Phil, say hi Phil" Phil made a strange hi pitched gargling noise, while Dan stared at him in disbelief.

"What? That was the noise of a happy giraffe"

"Giraffes don't make noises, Phil"

"Yes they do they make that exact noise" Phil protested, recreating the sound

Dan rolled his eyes "Whatever" addressing the camera again he continued "so toady we are going to be doing something we've wanted to do for a long time which is a My Chemical Romance dance party, and as you'll notice we have a special guest" He made a large gesture towards Annabeth, "Phil would you like to introduce our guest?"

Phil took the cue "Yes, this here is our friend Annabeth, who Dan found in a park, and decided to keep. Plus she's cool and emo so though we figured why not put her in this video"

"Emo? What makes you think I'm emo?" She countered looking quite defensive at the title 

"the fact when asked if you knew the lyrics to all the MCR songs you replied with are parades black" Dan had no time for her facade right now, this was a My Chemical Romance video, either get emo or get out 

"Fine you win, I might be a little bit emo" 

"yeah sure just a little bit" faking a couch Dan interjected the word "massively" into his sentence before continuing "so Annabeth here is going to be lip syncing along with all the songs we play, and I'm going to see how long I last before I ultimately become a crying mess in the corner, sound good? Alright lets get started" 

They played a whole series of songs in no particular order, Dan discovered that although he and Phil had made out to MCR many times, dancing was by far much more difficult. In fact they were both so terrible at it they ended up merely jumping up and down to the beat to the best of their abilities, which was exhausting. Growing exhausted from hopping he was overjoyed when Helena came on, simply because it would appear just as entertaining to act out as it would to jump to. Unfortunately his and Phil's acting to the song consisted of staring passionately at each other while screaming "so long and goodnight" so most of the song became a blur.

Every once and a while Dan would turn to stare at Annabeth who was smiling her head off, silently singing along in perfect time. Her smile was almost as big as when she talked about her boyfriend. 

As Party Poison began to end Dan began to think of closing off the video, seeing as the tune was relatively upbeat he decided to end it on a lighthearted note. This he thought would be best achieved by physically diving towards Annabeth in an attempt to pick her up. This did not go well. There was a blur of the white walls followed by the flash of a ceiling light before Dan was suddenly aware he was lying back down on the sofa. Phil looked relatively concerned at seeing Dan so violently judo flipped but worse Annabeth appeared like she was horrified with herself to the point of tears. In a desperate attempt to cheer her up while keeping the video going Dan snapped his fingers before making guns out of them to point directly at her. "Think fast who's your favourite emo singer?"

She looked completely stunned, Dan swore at that moment he could see the cogs turning in her brain trying to calculate a response "Uhhhh, umm I don't know, Brendon Uri?"

Dan's finger guns turned into a face palm, "Literally we've been listening to MCR for two hours and you say Brendon Uri." He turned towards her and looked through the space in his fingers "Nice Annabeth, good work on that one"

"Well I'll say that was a Pretty. Odd. response" added Phil 

"Nooooooooooo" Dan yelled, toppling himself off the couch onto the floor in despair. "You took a bad answer and somehow made it worse, the emo gods hate us now." His two friends were staring down at him smiling like the demons of evil they were, he rolled onto his face, "I'm done with this video, one of you end it"

An awkward silence ensued only interrupted briefly by shuffling as Dan presumed the other two turned back to the camera. "Are you seriously not coming back Dan?" that was Phil, Dan felt too emotionally scarred to justify a response, instead continuing to lay silently on the ground. More silence. 

Annabeth's voice broke through his lack of a reply "Dan went down in an earlier round"

Suddenly the room filled with his boyfriends laughter. Dan turned his head to see Phil doubled over in glee, unable to contain himself. The longer Dan watched him the more he also felt a compulsion to laugh, which as much as he tried he was unable to resist. Picking himself up off the floor he stepped towards a very pleased looking Annabeth and shook her hand. "I have to hand it to you, that was pretty good" As Phil's laughter softened into heavy wheezes Dan stared straight into the camera, preparing for the send off "well that was our MCR dance party, thumbs up if you liked this video or subscribe if you haven't already bye gu-"

"EMO HUG" Phil launched himself a Dan subsequently pushing him into Annabeth, Knocking them both over. The end result of which was them all lying on the floor in a pile of tangled limbs alternating between laughing, breathing and coughing. It took a solid two minutes before Dan was able to get up and turn the camera off. 

"Well that was, Um, Interesting, Fun, but interesting" He looked outside, it was pitch-black, the digital clock next to the window read two am "Annabeth theres no point in you going home this late, just sleep in my room. I usually sleep with Phil anyways." The blonde seemed to yawn in agreement, he hoped she was actually able to get some sleep, the poor thing looked like she needed it.

Following the trend Phil yawned as well "I think I'll go to bed too, you coming Dan?"

As much as Dan wanted nothing more in life that to curl up with Phil in bed he wasn't remotely sleepy and would only squirm keeping his partner up unnecessarily, besides this video would be a beast to edit, "Nah I'm gonna work on this baby" he motioned to the camera "I'll join you in a bit, promise" 

"Alright if your sure" Phil walked up to Dan and kissed him on the cheek "night bear"

Dan smiled back at him "night Philly" and watched him walk into his bedroom at the end of the hall. Annabeth was left standing in the living room looking like she didn't quite know what to do with herself. "Do go try and get some sleep Annabeth, you earned it"

Annabeth nodded again "thanks for all your help tonight Dan, I really needed it"

Dan was genuinely confused by the remark and displayed it on his face "What help? I just kept you up all night dancing"

Rather that responding his friend chose to give him a sleepy smile before turning to depart for the night, leaving Dan alone with his laptop.


	7. The Storm Behind Your Eyes

It wasn't unusual for Dan not to come to bed on editing nights, usually Phil would find him curled up on the couch, laptop just out of reach on the floor in front of him. Phil loved these types of mornings, Dan was so cute when he slept and typically such a light sleeper that he woke up the moment Phil did. But the mornings after editing nights were different, Dan would be in such a deep slumber Phil could just sit and watch him as little snores escaped his mouth, and when he did wake up had such a sleepy, gentle temperament cuddles were sure to ensue. It was the expectation of this type of day that had Phil in such a good mood upon waking up. 

What he was met with when he walked into the living room however was completely different scene. Dan sat upright, staring intensely at the computer in from of him, headphones on, completely immersed in the screen. Occasionally he would touch the keyboard or mouse pad, but only to return his captivated gaze to the monitor. It occurred to Phil that he may not have slept all night.

"Dan?" Phil walked up behind him, placing his hand on his partner's shoulder

As expected his boyfriend didn't jump or scream, instead calmly removing his headphones and turning his head towards Phil. "Morning, how'd you sleep?"

"How did I sleep? I'm much more concerned that you may have gotten none at all! You can't edit all night and not sleep'

"Yeah, yeah sleep is important, whatever. Come here you need to see this" Dan urgently motioned for Phil to join him on the sofa, a request the older man was happy to oblige. "So I was taking out the part of the video where we sing Helena, cause we looked too in love and the shippers would go nuts, and I didn't notice it at first, but look at Annabeth in the background. 

Looking at the video frames Phil could find nothing strange about them, Dan was right his heart eyes were too strong big to post too their channels, but other than that it seemed normal. Annabeth sat in the back smiling, just as he remembered her doing. "She seems fine, why?"

Dan pulled up another tab in the editing program, this one heavily zoomed in on the architecture student, and hit play "look again." 

The video was significantly slowed down this time, Phil watch adamantly determined to find whatever Dan was alluding to. Again every thing seemed normal, Annabeth was smiling and singing along, maybe Dan has hallucinating from his lack of sleep. Suddenly the he noticed something shiny thing on Annabeth's cheek running down her face, lots of them in fact, each falling eventually making its way to her jawline before falling on the floor. "She's crying" He concluded. "that doesn't make sense, she looks perfectly happy"

"does she?" Dan prodded 

Suddenly Annabeth's expression no longer looked cheerful, instead it looked pained. Her stormy grey eyes betrayed the false smile she projected. The expression Phil had mistaken for enjoyment now resembled that of a mourning widow thanking funeral attendees, only for the purpose of taking her mind off the loss. 

"It's just this song, I went through all the footage" Dan mentioned, adding "she came over last night because something was bothering her, wouldn't tell me what, but something was definitely up. Maybe The song reminded her of whatever had been upsetting her earlier?"

Phill shook his head in confusion, "you never get the full story with Annabeth, even if you asked I'd doubt she would tell you. All you ever really know is she's hurting and you'll never fully understand why"

"Maybe she's hiding something" Dan proposed "living in different person's empty house every week, means never having a permeant address, and she's been living in the UK for months and we are her only friends. No one lives that reclusively without good reason." He paused for a moment, "maybe she killed someone and is running from the law, that would explain why she doesn't use a cell phone." He said it as a joke but there was truth in his eyes, Phil had to admit the same thoughts were running through his own head. What if Dan was right and she was concealing some heinous secret? What if she was in fact dangerous? Annabeth had effortlessly judo flipped Dan last night, worse she had done it without hesitation or thought. What normal nineteen year old could do that so instinctively? 

"Well maybe if you asked instead on snooping and theorizing she would tell you it" Annabeth stood in the entrance of the living room looking pissed, "if you must know yesterday was the anniversary my brother's death, he introduced my to MCR and Helena was his favourite song, so excuse me for crying. A brother who, by the way betrayed me in the worst way imaginable. Knowing that my father rejected me as the child he never wanted, knowing that my mother only uses me only as a means to an end. Still he chose to act the way he did, fully aware it would hurt me. Worst of all in the I had to hold his dying body and tell him I forgave him, the last thing I ever told my brother was a lie. So I'm sorry I didn't confess my life story to you any sooner, most people don't like to talk about how they lied to their brother, bleeding out before them." Her voice grew more intense the more she spoke, but never broke, it seemed to Phil she was to consumed by anger to cry. leaning into Dan's face so that their noses where touching, Annabeth continued, "and you asked why I move around all the time and don't talk to anyone. Well maybe it's because everyone I've ever loved has left me, at age seven I ran away and no one tried to find me. The boy I refer to as my brother spent years building a relationship with me only to destroy everything. My boyfriend went missing for six months and now I constantly live in fear it will happen again. I haven't heard from any of the friends I once considered family since last summer, they have the ability to visit me but don't, even though they all know everything I've been through. I can't handle another loss, so I isolate myself. I'm sorry if that bothers you. If I'm being honest I didn't even want to get this close to you and Phil but my mental health demanded it, so I took the risk." She took a step back arms crossed, the tears now budding from the corners of her eyes, but this time she made no attempt to hide the pain, "turns out you're just like everyone else, thinking I'm off somehow. How much longer would it have been before you called the cops because you convinced yourself I committed some horrible crime, or maybe you would have just slowly distanced your selves from me hoping I wouldn't notice." Annabeth took a deep shuddery breath, "let me save you some time. It " She grabbed the art tube which had been resting on the TV and swiftly headed for the exit.

The significance of her words began to set in, after all the heart break the girl had endured, Phil refused to be another painful memory. "Annabeth wait!" He called out, she was about two feet from the door, he needed to think of something to stop her leaving, anything

She stopped, not bothering to turn around "Save it Phil"

"Move in with us" Phil could hardly believe the invitation he had just extended, and from the look on Dan's face neither could he. At the same time he didn't feel compelled to take it back.

Annabeth turned to face him, "I'm not moving in with you so you can pat yourself on the back for taking in the damaged girl, who you feel bad for upsetting"

Dan stood up abruptly, pleading with her "We aren't asking to make ourselves feel better, we are asking because you are our legitimate friend who we care about and don't want to lose. You're an amazing, intelligent, funny person and you won't be recognized for that unless you let people in. Yes, you can go back to living out of a suitcase, and never speaking to anyone, but I think there is a part of you that want to bond with people. Using Phil and I for mental support is one thing, but we are your friends now. We hang out on your good days as well as your bad ones. You've never had a family that cares about you, and I can't even begin to imagine how horrible that feels, but we do care about you. Yes, we won't we screwed up today and we are so sorry, we didn't know. Please just stay." 

Annabeth still looked like she was going to cry, but not out of anger or pain anymore, fear maybe? heartbreak? Shaking her head she struggled to speak,"I'm sorry, I can't, I just, I can't" 

And with that she ran out of the apartment.


	8. The Annabeth Chase

Not this time, was Dan's only thought as he sprang up from the couch in pursuit of the blonde girl, already out of sight. The information Annabeth had just given him was swarming in his head, creating more questions than answers. How could someone so young be abandoned so many times? How did you lose a boyfriend for six months? Did she have a brother? Why did she watch him die? Why didn't her family want her? More overwhelming than any of these questions however was the raw emotion contained within them. He couldn't imagine what living with baggage like that felt like, every time he tried he was consumed by a urge to curl up and cry. A feeling only heightened when he remembered that he was now the cause of some that pain. He needed to right that wrong, he needed to hug her and tell her it was going to be ok, but first he'd have to catch her.

Phil had taken off first chasing her down the steps, Dan too was about to round the corner into the stairwell when he heard a crash. As he descended the stairs he registered Phil tangled in a coat rack, which Dan presumed he had run into. He began to slow his pace in order to help his raven-haired boyfriend, concerned he may have hurt himself. 

"No, go after her. I'll catch up" Phil yelled out from under a bright orange puffer jacket. Dan took the order in stride, speeding up once again in the hopes of gaining some ground on Annabeth. 

Immediately his hopes of shortening the distance between himself and the grey eyed girl were crushed, it took all his effort to keep her blonde pony tail in view. She was fast, remarkably so. His unexercised legs would be no match for the muscles she contained under her slim physique. Not only that but the determination which she ran with, indicated the American had no plans of slowing down. If he was going to have any hope of catching her he would have to he would have to outsmart her. Dan's first thought was to simply follow her to her destination and confront her there. 

Suddenly she turned her head to look behind her, however seeing Dan did not inspire her to speed up, rather take a sharp turn the the left. Shit, she wasn't headed anywhere in particular Dan realized, she was just trying to lose him and making it up as she went along, so much for plan one. They were headed into downtown London now particularly Trafalgar Square, soon to be absorbed by crowds of people. If that happened Dan would lose her in a instant. Worse the deeper you went into London the deeper the history, thousands of forgotten alleys and pathways were hidden within the city and Annabeth with her architecture major knew each one by heart. 

It dawned on Dan, no matter how this played out he would never reach her, he was at a disadvantage in every way. As the futile nature of the task began to set in so did his exhaustion, even if he wanted to Dan would never be able to keep running at this pace, his legs felt like jelly about to give in at any moment. Watching Annabeth dissolve into a large group of tourists he stopped running, taking deep, gasping breaths to prevent himself from throwing up. Imagine if he threw up at this moment surrounded by people who would surely give their undivided attention to the gagging youtuber before them. Thats when Dan had what surely must have been one go the most brilliant ideas in the history of the world. He may not be able to keep up using physical abilities and historical knowledge but one thing he could do was handle a crowd.

Raising his voice as loud as possible Dan yelled "OH MY GOSH LOOK ITS PHIL LESTER FROM AMAZING PHIL!" As if on cue Phil ran into viewpoint, only to be surrounded by fans and confused people unsure about the cause commotion. 

Dan's self created distraction did enough to force the crowed Annabeth had disappeared into move slightly to one direction. Standing on his tiptoes he watched the movements of the people within it, searching for the odd one out. Sure enough he found what he was looking for, A blonde ponytail running in the opposite direction of everyone else, apparently unaware her living cloak had moved. She was headed into the tube by the looks of it, again Dan's heart filled with despair the tube could take her anywhere in London, how was he to know where she was headed. No, that didn't ad up, if she took the tube he would still know she was somewhere in London. Dan was willing to bet good money that Annabeth didn't want him knowing the slightest thing about her location. She wouldn't be taking the tube anywhere in London, she would take it somewhere she slip out of they city easily, the Chunnel. Dan knew knew London transportation like the back of his hand, meaning he knew for a fact that at this time of day it would be faster to drive to the Chunnel than tube there. He could cut her off at the entrance, smiling he hailed a taxi. The chase wasn't over yet, and he just might win.


	9. Point of No Return

Annabeth wasn't sure whether to hug or kill Dan when she saw him waiting outside the Chunnel ticket booth. There was no chance of her turning back at this point, the tube had just pulled out of the station, it would be five minutes till the next one, more than enough time for Dan to find her again. How was he even here right now? He hadn't even been supposed to chase her, let alone find her. Part of her wished Dan and Phil would both just abandon her, she knew how to deal with that, pack up and move on. But this, inviting her to live with them pursuing her all over London. It was so much harder to leave when someone was trying to convince you to stay. Deep down she had really wanted to live with Dan and Phil, over the past year they had begun to feel like family to her. For the first time since Tartarus Annabeth had felt safe and happy around people other than Percy. Last night had really cemented that feeling for her, and she didn't want to give it up. But moving in with mortals would be impossible, the danger would be to high, the secrets would be too complex. She had let them get too close, there was no way she could continue her relationship with Dan and Phil without them demanding answers, answers she couldn't give them. Anxiety ate through her insides as Dan walked towards her, she had no idea what to do, she couldn't run, couldn't fight and not a clue what to say. She needed the world to stop for a moment, a minute to think, or cry, or anything really, just not keep going. 

As if able to read her thoughts Dan silently enveloped her into a massive bear hug, stopping to silently hold her. Annabeth knew if she hugged him back it would be that much harder to let go, but still she wrapped her arms tightly around him. Someone had bothered to come back for her, someone cared, like a tidal wave had crashed in her brain it suddenly hit her how long it had been since she'd seen Percy. Since someone had hugged her as if they where trying to stick all her broken pieces back together, since anyone had cared enough to see the broken pieces at all. But she couldnt be repaired and sooner or later she would be forced let Dan go, Annabeth pressed her head into Dan's chest and began to cry at the thought.

"Hey, its ok America. I'm not going to leave you" He stroked her hair, she could partically feel him finding the patch of grey strands leftover from holding up the sky. Another reminder that she wouldn't be able to exist in the mortal world. 

"No, but I have to leave you," she pulled out of the hug cheeks still wet with tears 

Dan looked like a kid who wasn't fully able to understand what it means when they are told their dog died. "Why? honestly we never use my bedroom, and we love you so much it wouldn't be a hassle..." 

Annabeth cut off his thought "Its nothing to do with you, I'm not safe to be around, my family is... complicated and there are people who would rather I was dead. I can't bring you into that."

"I don't understand, if your in hiding why did you say we could put you on youtube, why do people want to kill y-"

Again she interrupted him, this time with a head shake "I can't tell you, I can't even tell you why I can't tell you, I'm sorry. Really its best if I go"

"No" Dan grabbed her by the shoulders, looking her straight in the eye, "I don't care if you can't tell me, and I don't care if its dangerous, you can't keep living like this. Eventually all that heartbreak will kill you in one way or another and I'm not going to let that happen, neither is Phil"

"I can't let you put yourselves in harms way for me, without any knowledge of why you're in danger or what from, its not fair" Annabeth was begging him to agree with her, because if he kept insisting it was all going to be ok she was worried she might believe him. "Its not just the danger, I can't even explain me," she grabbed her grey streak, showing it to him "I can't tell you why I have this, I can't tell you why this art tube is so important to me, or why I judo flipped you last night."

Dan seemed oddly calm about the situation all of a sudden, as if he had switched on a reassurance setting in his mind "I don't need to know any of that to know who you are, and to be honest, I don't even care about it. All I care about is that I trust you, and I do know why I'm in danger. I'm in danger because I chose to stand by my friend, so she wouldn't be alone. Thats not your fault, its my choice and I don't care what's causing the danger, I just care that you don't face it on your own. C'mon American, come home with me"

She was so painstakingly lose to saying yes it hurt, she couldn't find any other reasons to say no, despite half of her desperately wanting to. "Only if Phil also agrees, this is too big a choice for you to make on his behalf"

"I agree" 

Annabeth turned around to find a smiling Phil standing behind her, with a black eye and his shirt torn and stretched. "Geez, Phil what happened?"

"Well then its settled" Dan clapped his hands together, trying to change the subject, "Lets go, soon it will be rush hour and I don't really want to take Phil on the tube looking like that"

"Hey, you're part of the reason I look like this" Phil retorted 

"Will someone explain why Phil looks the way he does" Annabeth asked again 

"A combination of a coat hanger and fangirls, don't worry I'm fine" He blew off her concern, however she got the feeling this would not be the last she and Dan heard about whatever incident had lead to Phil's appearance. 

The taxi ride home was an silent one, Dan and Phil were both exhausted from the amount of energy they had exuded earlier in the day. While Annabeth just sat, forehead pressed against the taxi cab window. Taking in the idea that she had a family again, one that made her feel whole, while at the same time asking herself how she would pull this off.


	10. Inevitability of Crashing

Phil was sitting at the dining room table across from Dan replying to tweets, it had been just over a month since Annabeth had moved in with them and it seemed to him the more time he spent with her the more of a mystery she became. She said she had PTSD yet could play Metal Gear Solid for hours on end and be perfectly chipper afterwards, but panicked at the thought of watching a Sims video. Obviously Phil knew PTSD was a complex disease that affected everyone differently but it seemed to him Annabeth was more worried about the calm before the storm than the storm itself. Then there was the jumpiness factor, judo flipping Dan was only and early indicator of what was now almost a daily event. Anytime you came up behind her, or surprised her at all she was on you faster than a fangirl could rant, to the point where it was dangerous. PJ had once forgotten his water bottle after filming a video and only meant to quickly re-entered their apartment in order to retrieve it. The door opening unfortunately caught Annabeth off guard and she hit him over the head with a lamp so hard they had had to go to the hospital to make sure he didn't have a concussion. He knew there was no point in worrying about it seeing as she wouldn't provide and explanation for her actions or condition. But still Phil was intrigued, he told himself it was due to how much he cared for the her that he desperately wanted to know what made her this way. Really he was just super curious.

"Shame you don't do draw Phil naked anymore, check this out" Dan remarked turning his laptop around for Phil to see a hand drawn picture of him naked, bottom half hidden behind the owl slide while Dil and Tabitha looked on confused.

He was about to reply when all thoughts of fan art were driven out of his head by an ear piercing shriek.

"Annnabeth" immediately Dan was up from the table rushing towards the university student's room, at first it seemed he had rose so violently the bookcase on the wall shook. No the bookcase wasn't shaking the books were, and they weren't stopping. 

"Look out!" Phil grabbed his boyfriend just in time to move him out of the way of a library of books flying through the air, pages seemingly turning themselves even after hitting the floor. 

Wide eyed, Dan stared at the scene before him, "What the fu-" 

He didn't have time to finish the sentence as at that moment their apartment formerly bathed in sunlight went dark, although sun had suddenly been blotted out. Simultaneously they became surrounded by the deafening sound of nails on a chalkboard coming from the window behind them. Phil turned around to find the window which typically illuminated the living room completely plastered by owls desperately attempting to claw their way through the glass, and from the looks of it more were coming. What the heck was going on? 

Dan looked justifiably terrified, "I don't think that window was designed to endure a parliament of angry owls" Phil could barely hear him over the noise of them all. Making it only more remarkable and terrifying when bang on the door so loud it canceled out the noise of the other.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Phil yelled, another bang.

Running into the kitchen Dan grabbed the largest knife he could see, returning to stand dead in front of the door. What was he doing? Surely he didn't think he could fight off whatever was behind that door with a meat cleaver? Phil didn't have time to protest when the sound of shattering glass filled his ears as the window behind him smashed. Hundreds of owls descended into the apartment, flapping their wings with such ferocity he could feel the air moving around him. In perfect synchronized movement the parliament made a beeline for Annabeth's room, seemingly unbothered by their being indoors. Annabeth! With all the commotion Phil had forgotten about the scream foreshadowing it. The events had to be linked in someway, why else would the owls head directly towards her. "I think this has got to do with Annabeth" 

The pounding intensified, at this rate the door wouldn't hold much longer. "Go fetch her then, maybe she can make it stop." Dan readjusted his grip on the cleaver, bracing himself for whatever was coming.

No, no, no there was no way Phil was just going to leave his completely unprepared boyfriend to fight alone against a unknown enemy. Dan was one of the strongest people he knew emotionally, but when it came to physical strength he was hopeless. Not to mention he had no fighting instincts whatsoever. Phil didn't know what it was but the thing on the other side of that door seemed pretty dangerous and very strong. He couldn't lose Dan, not like this, if they were going to die today they should die together. 

Sensing Phil's hesitation Dan added "I'll be fine, I promise just hurry"

Seeing no other choice Phil ran full speed into Annabeth's room, only to witness something completely surreal. The parliament had created a cyclone in the middle of the room which he assumed she must be in the middle of, seeing as she was no where else to be found. Everything in Phil's body was telling him to run, but if he was right and this was linked to Annabeth, then the only way he could protect Dan was to find her. Taking a slow step forward he called out to her, at first the owls blocked his path, never attacking but refusing to let him pass. He could practically feel the seconds counting down till the door broke, in desperation he tried again, "Annabeth, help us"

The wall of owls slowly separated, taking what seemed like years to reveal a curled up, terrified looking Annabeth. Running up to her he crouched down to her level, she was having a panic attack, crap. He didn't have time to calm her down right now, Dan would have to face whatever that thing was any moment now. Out of options Phil resorted appealing to her in her panicked state. Taking a deep breath he unleashed all his pent up fear and adrenaline through a rambling string of words "Annabeth, please. If you're in there right now I need you to hear me, I need you to wake up. I don't even know if you can. I don't know whats happening but theres some sort of monster at the door and I'm worried its going to kill Dan. Please wake up I don't know what to do, please." 

The word monster sent a jolt through Annabeth, the owls suddenly dispersing as she rose and grabbed her art tube. Phil tried to read her expression to no avail, she stood back straight, completely stone faced. As emotionless and statuesque as she seemed the stance seemed almost natural for her. 

Crash. The sound of the door breaking pulled Phil back into the moment, he met Annabeth's storm grey eyes with a panicked expression. 

"Stay behind me," without pausing to question or explain, Annabeth ran out of her room towards the front hall. Holding her art tube like a sword as she went.


	11. Drifting

The door broke, revealing a pack of fifteen to twenty larger then normal sized rottweilers, growling and snarling viciously, eyes fixated on Dan. Standing holding the knife above his shoulder ready to swing, Dan was unsure what his next move was. Should he attack first? Could he? At the moment he seem to be paralyzed by fear. He couldn't chicken out, the dogs blocked the exit, not to mention cowering in fear left Phil and Annabeth completely exposed. But at the same time he wasn't capable of fighting off twentyish rottweilers. Hell, he probably wasn't capable of fighting off one. Before he was able to process his options this decision was made for him, as the first dog lunged forwards. Dan's body reacted before he did, bringing the cleaver down in a diagonal motion across his torso. The blade swept against the attacking hound's neck and chest creating a wound that should have killed it right then and there. Instead rather the dog let out a yelp of pain but continued it's leap, dragging it's sharpnclaws along his chest. 

Dan withered back in pain, leaning on the couch for support, the dog's scratch had stung more than he had expected it to. Holding the cleaver with his left hand Dan put his right to his chest to inspect the injury. It was met by a warm sticky substance, he pulled his hand away to confirm his fears. Dark red blood mixed with the fibres of his ripped sweater covered his hand, so much it was near sickening to look at. The attacking rottweiler had retreated to the back of the group, hurt but by no means at risk of death. Dan on the other hand was a different story. Despite the pain radiating across the left side of his body he gripped the knife again preparing the face the dogs once more, he wasn't going to live through this. The first dog had almost killed him, he couldn't last through the entire pack even if he managed to kill one. The best he could do now was make his death worth something and buy Phil and Annabeth time. Taking a deep breath he accepted his fate "I love you Phil" he said for the last time before raising the cleaver above his head once more, and stepping forward, edging the hounds to attack.

"Don't even think about it moron!" Annabeth's voice resonated throughout the flat, accompanied by her running into Dan with such force he dropped the cleaver and was pushed to the opposite side of the room, out of the dog's line of attack. "Phil, Dan get behind the couch. Phil take care of Dan" She barked at them both. 

Clutching his chest Dan watched as a petrified looking Phil came up behind Annabeth scrambling to get behind the sofa. Dan met his eyes briefly trying desperately maintain eye contact so Phil wouldn't see he was hurt. It didn't work, it only took a moment for Phil's to notice the blood oozing out between Dan's fingers, immediately his expression became on of extreme concern. Meeting Dan's eyes again he motion for the younger to join him in the appointed hiding spot. Dan was in rather lightheaded and in so much pain by this point he was unsure if he could remain standing, forget run across a room. If he was going to die from this injury though, he was going to die as close to Phil as possible. With only that one thought in his mind he dove behind the couch, a movement that caused so much pain he cried out in agony when he arrived. "Phil-" Speaking suddenly required so much more effort than usual, Dan wasn't even sure he could put together a sentence. 

Lucky for him then that Phil was not at all in a talkative mood, "Shut up Dan" he said sharply. 

Woozy, he did what he was told letting Phil help him lie flat on his back so he could better see the claw marks. From his lying down position Dan's head just stuck out past the sofa enough to see the commotion taking a place in the front hall. For the first time Dan understood the phrase "my eyes deceive me" he was apparently witnessing Annabeth take on the entire pack of rottweilers by single handily. Not only that, he watched as she hit them one at a time with her art tube causing them to turn to dust, her calm demeanour along with her extremely quick reflexes making the fight look more like a choreographed dance. He must be hallucinating from lack of blood loss, it was the only way to explain what he was seeing. 

"Dan" his name was the only word he could make out, the rest of whatever his boyfriend was saying was a garbled string of indecipherable syllables. It then occurred to dan he was topless, Phil must have cut his sweater off the access the injury, what was that pressing against his heart? it was making it hard to breath. Looking to see, he discovered it was Phil using his trashed sweater to absorb the blood while applying pressure to the wound. Strange he didn't really feel it anymore, maybe it had healed. His vision started to blur, a blonde blob came up behind Phil and said something, Dan couldn't tell what was going on but it looked like Phil and the blonde were talking, the Phil shaped blob had shaken his head a few times before nodding. He said something to Dan then moved out of the way to let the blonde squat down beside him, grabbing him by the bottom of the ribcage. Dan couldn't feel her doing this of course, his entire body felt detached and tingly. Dan was suddenly aware of the fact was rising off the floor, his last thought was to make note of what flying felt like before he blacked out.


	12. Percy

Percy. Car crash. Dead. Those were the only words running through Annabeth's mind as she battled the hellhounds. The longer the words lingered, the more nothing seemed to exist but them. Over and over again the scene played in her head: a visibly upset Piper appearing via iris message (the first one Annabeth had seen in a year), breaking the news that Percy lay comatose in the sick bay, an hour, maybe two left to live. She had gone on to explain what had happened, how he had been driving up to camp when a drunk driver t-boned his car, how he'd most likely been rendered unconscious upon impact. She had assured Annabeth how Will and the other Apollo kids had done every they could to save him but that he was too far gone, how he was already brain dead and his vitals were shutting down. But Annabeth barely heard any of it, only that the love of her life was dead, not from battling ultimate evil of sacrificing himself for the greater good, dead because some mortal had decided to drink and drive. The love of her life had died for no reason, and he hadn't died by her side. 

Her entire body felt like a shell only being pushed to fight by muscle memory. How could he be dead, after everything he had survived, the gods he had fought, the monsters he had killed, how could he die from something so mortal? Percy Jackson, didn't deserve to die from something mortal! At that moment Annabeth wished she was back in the Argo II, the sea of monsters, the labyrinth or even Tartarus, anywhere they were together would be better than her life ahead without him. Part of her wanted to stop fighting, lay down her sword and meet him in Elysium, he had fallen into the depths of hell for her, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to join him in heaven. The only thing holding her back was the two men cowering behind the sofa, she hadn't gotten a good look at him, but Dan look badly hurt, not only that but hellhounds could carry the curses of previously killed monsters in their claws. If they had passed any sort of mythical ailment onto Dan no amount of mortal medicine in the world would be able to save him. She thought of how Phil couldn't be feeling that dissimilar from herself, knowing the person he loved most in the world was dying and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. She envied him, the privilege of being able to hold his lover's hand as he faded away, to keep him company until the end, all things which had been ruthlessly torn away from her by fate. Regardless of how much she wanted that for herself, however she would not allow Phil to be forced to watch Dan die, when there might still be hope. The pain she experienced that day on mount Olympus with Luke paled in comparison to how she felt now, she couldn't allow anyone to feel like this is if could be prevented, especially when she had caused it. 

Her grief was suddenly swallowed by overwhelming guilt and shame, this was all her fault. The shock of hearing of her boyfriend's fate had caused her demigod abilities to physically manifest, something previously thought impossible for children of Athena. She had involuntarily summoned the owls, caused books to fly off the shelves, emitted the surge of power that had attracted the hellhound that attacked Dan. She had hurt Dan, and now she was hurting Phil as well. The traces of the massive amount of energy she had unleashed drifted though London, guaranteed to attract more monsters. The entire apartment was coated in trace elements of demigod power it might as well have a glowing sign reading "tasty half-blood here!" They were would be sitting ducks if they stayed put, the flat had to many entry points, too many blindspots, it would be impossible to defend. Not that they would be much safer anywhere else she was currently the epicentre of all mythical energy in London, perhaps england, essentially a homing beacon for monsters. If they hadn't been so close to her at the time of the incident and if Dan wasn't injured she would say the youtube duo's best hope of survival would be to get as far away from her as possible. But Dan and Phil were coated in her power too now, leaving them would be signing their death sentences. Killing the last hellhound a thought occurred to her, it wouldn't solve the problem of the endless steam of monsters pursuing them, but it would buy them time. Something they currently did not have. 

"Phil we need to run" She joined him behind the sofa. Where he was desperately leaning over Dan trying to stop the bleeding with the remnants of his patient's ripped up shirt. His pale skin looked tanned compared to Dan's whose was snow white from blood loss. 

Phil shook his head, "Dan's isn't responding to me anymore, I can't even get the bleeding to stop, he can't run anywhere, I won't leave him." His voice was desperate to the point of cracking, she couldn't see his face but the droplets of water on Dan's bare chest told her Phil was crying. 

"I'm not asking you to leave him" she was almost offended Phil thought she would ever insinuate such a thing. "I'm asking you to carry him"

Turning his head to look at her Annabeth saw that the amount of anguish in his eyes mirrored her own, he shook his head again "I can't, I'm not strong enough" 

Annabeth prayed to the gods she wasn't about to make the worst mistake of her life, "Then I'll carry him." She unsheathed her sword from its cross body strap, handing it to Phil "Take this"

"What good is your art tube going to do?" he asked puzzled voice still husky from crying. 

Dam mist. In her greif Annabeth had forgotten neither Phil nor Dan had any clue as to what was going on, "Right now all you need to know is that if you see anymore big dogs like those, hit them with it and run. I promise to explain everything to you after we make sure Dan isn't dying, but right now we really need to go" 

Taking the sword from her Phil, moved out of way so she could lug Dan over her shoulder, his wound warmly bleeding through the back of her shirt. He wasn't too heavy for her to carry but by no means a comfortable weight to support. "Start running, the sooner we get to Baker street the better the chance we'll be safe there" and with that Annabeth and her raven haired companion fled the apartment.


	13. Basically, Run

The run to Baker street was a complete blur to Phil, too many things had happened too fast for him to comprehend: his apartment was trashed, Dan was bleeding, you could fight dogs with art tubes. Baker Street focus on getting to Baker street, come to think of it why were they headed to Baker street? Call him cynical but he didn't think this was the ideal time to learn about Sherlock Holmes. He turned his head to check on Annabeth, who seemed to be making a remarkable pace for a 5"7 girl carrying a unconscious 6"4 man over her shoulder. 10 feet behind her, another pack of rottweilers, larger than the one they had encountered previously.

Phil rounded a corner to be greeted by masses of people lined up along the sidewalk, presumably awaiting access to the consulting detective's museum. None of whom seemed to be at all concerned by the grandiose number of vicious hounds pursuing the two panicked millennials and their unresponsive companion. Observing the oddly calm crowd as he ran it struck Phil he had no instructions as to what to do once they had arrived at Baker street.

Perhaps anticipating his confusion Annabeth gave a shout from the rear, "GIFTSHOP"

As strange as the command was Phil had neither the time nor the mental capability to question her at the moment, opting instead to run full speed into the aforementioned area. Inside the store was incredibly cluttered with Sherlock Holmes memorabilia covering every inch of the small room. It smelled as if the smell of musty books had been turned into the scented candle, which wasn't necessarily bad, but by no means unnoticeable. His grey eyed friend wasn't far behind him, arriving just a few moments later. Again none of the eager tourists and literature enthusiasts took notice of Dan's bloodied body perched on her shoulder. Rather instead more alarmed by the speed with which the group had entered the shop, disrupting the quiet atmosphere. Annabeth seemed unbothered by people's apathy to her dying friend as she made her way through door reading "employees only" which opened into a massive storage room. Phil was absolutely astounded, the area was almost comparable to a small airplane hanger, with only a few boxed and discarded prodcts scattered along the walls. The back wall sheltered one fully assembled display all by its lonesome, as they approached it Phil was able to see the set up more clearly, a tattered orange banner with black lettering that read "inspiration" hung above a shelf holding marble carvings of owls dressed like the great detective. After his experiences earlier in the day Phil wasn't particularly keen on owls but again saw no alternative to letting Annabeth guide him. She stopped directly in front of the display, reciting some sort of incantation he was unable to understand and was in no way recognizable as english. The shelf slid sideways revealing and doorway which Phil could only see darkness through. Annabeth looked at him expectancy, presumably waiting for him to proceed through the entrance. 

Suddenly it seemed as though his brain snapped into focus, how the hell had she just done that? Why did she know some strange chant to open a shelf? Why was she acting like this was normal? How did she attract and command all those owls? a multitude of questions swirled Phil's brain, he in no way wanted to go through the newly appeared door, but saw no choice. In the background he could hear the incessant barking of dogs growing ever louder, not to mention Annabeth had Dan, if she went through that door and he refused would he ever see Dan again? What if Dan died beyond the doorway and Phil wasn't with him. Resolving to press Annabeth for answers at the first opportunity, he strode closer to the door preparing himself to enter.

"Watch your step there's a bit of as drop" Annabeth informed him, "I'm right behind you"

She wasn't wrong, Stepping through the passageway Phil nearly fell flat on his face when he discovered the ground was two feet lower than he'd expected it to be. Struggling to regain his footing he quickly observed his surroundings, he was in a room which at first glance appeared to be a university dorm, it was small, with a twin bed pressed against the far wall, the kind with drawers underneath and a 90's era computer in the corner, with a dresser by the door. The only distinguishing factors where the fact the ceiling, walls and floor were all constructed out of undecorated concrete, and the fireplace on the wall across from the computer. 

As if by magic Annabeth appeared behind him, laying Dan on his back in the middle of the floor so she could better inspect him. He looked even worse than Phil remembered, his skin was near transparent, so much so his veins could be seen underneath it, and his closed eyes deeply sunk into his skull. Blood no longer gushed from the wound but the skin around it had now turned black and dried cracked blood was painted along his chest. By all accounts he looked dead, the only thing indicating otherwise was the ever so slight rise and fall of Dan's chest. Phil looked up to ask Annabeth what was wrong with him but she had already sprung into action, rummaging through one of the drawers under the bed. 

"We need to close that gash the longer its open the faster the poison spreads" Running back to Dan's holding a newly found needle, she produced her swiss army knife from her pocket. "Phil I need you to hold him still and keep him calm, Dan's not actually knocked out his body is just trying to preserve as much life as it can by becoming mostly unresponsive. This however is going to hurt like hell and might briefly jolt him into seizures or cries for help due to his instincts trying to respond faster than his slowed down body can keep up. Basically make sure he doesn't hit his head" 

Before he could ask what she planned to do Annabeth had cut off a wad of her hair using her knife and proceeded weave the strands together before threading then through the sowing needle. Doing as she said he held Dan's head firmly in his hands, alarmed to find him boyfriend cold to the touch. 

"Okay, get ready, 3, 2, 1" On one she jammed the sewing needle into the edge of the wound and began stitching up the cut fast as she could. Immediately Dan's body began to convulse, face contorting into an expression of extreme pain, taking all of Phil's efforts to stop him for hurting himself. What happened next was the worst thing Phil had ever experienced and would haunt him for the rest of his life, Dan began to scream in pain. At first a garbled yell from the back of his throat gaining in volume and pitch as it went one, this seemed happy compared to the next thing, as Dan's brain began to become aware of the situation he began to screams words. Phil was forced to hold his boyfriend still as he begged for help, for the someone to make the pain to stop, even if it meant killing him. He looked like a caged wild animal desperate to escape the situation by any means necessary. 

"Annabeth stop!" Phil's inside felt like they were being eaten out from the inside, barely able to watch his partner endure so much pain. He pleaded through tears "you're going to kill him" She didn't listen, instead carrying on with such an intense focus Phil doubted she could hear him, leaving him relegated to watch his beloved Dan beg for death on a hard, cold, concrete floor.

By the time she had finished the stitches Dan had gone into a state of shock so intense he was hyperventilating as he seized. Annabeth got up and ran to the dresser "Try to calm him down, the more scared he is the less of a chance he has"

"How much of one has he got right now?" Phil wasn't even sure he wanted to know the answer 

"More that zero" she replied unreassuringly as she grabbed a folded up purple t-shirt before going over to the bed drawers again and pulling out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a roll of duct-tape. Returning to her patient she drench the shirt in alcohol before placing it over his gash. "Now calm him down"

Phil wasn't at all sure Dan was present enough to be calmed down but anything was worth a shot it it would save his life. Bending over he pressed his forehead against Dan's, "c'mon bear" he muttered "you can do this, just stay with me" he ran his hand down Dan's cold arm until their fingers intertwined. Gripping his hand tightly he continued speaking to his shaking boyfriend "It's going to be ok bear, I promise, you just need to trust us. I love you so much, and I won't let anything else bad happen to you, please hold on." Remarkable, Dan actually seemed to respond going from violent convulsions to light shaking. 

"Good" Annabeth noted, taking advantage of the now much stiller Dan to secure the iodine soaked shirt with duct-tape. "Keep doing that" she grabbed a water bottle and what looked like one of those mini vodka bottles sold at liquor stores, filled with a gold sparkling liquid. Pouring out the majority of the water bottle onto the floor she added barely more than a drop of the golden fluid into its remaining contents. Grabbing the now used sewing needle off the floor Phil watched her prick herself in the finger, mixing three drops of her own blood into the mixture. "Phil do you trust me?"

"No", in the past hour Phil had witnessed her make books move without touching them, swarm his flat with owls, fight off a pack of 20 wild dogs without breaking a sweat and open a secret passage inside the Sherlock Holmes museum, all while not appearing confused or freaked in the least. Had the question been posed yesterday the response would have been different, but after today he just couldn't say he did in good faith"

Annabeth cringed at the response, although there was no shock in her expression, Phil suspected she had expected his answer, still it seemed to deeply her. "I understand, but I need you too for this one thing, to save Dan"

Upon hearing the phrase "save Dan" Phil's reservations went out the window, he was prepared to do anything to save his boyfriend, and if that meant listening to a sketchy blonde girl with a questionable past and even more questionable abilities then so be it. "What do you need Annabeth" 

She handed him the knife, "cut your hand and try and get as much blood as possible into his mouth" 

Phil looked at her horrified, "why does it have to be my blood? Can't you do it? What good is drinking blood going to do"

Annabeth had put the cap on the water bottle and was intently shaking it. "It needs to be any fully mortal's blood just to even out the effects of the antidote I'm giving him, Dan's blood is too tainted to counter out the negative affects on his own" 

A realization in her wording suddenly hit Phil "wait does that mean you're saying you're not-"

"Are you going to cut your hand or not" She cut him off abruptly making no attempt to hide the fact she was avoiding the topic.

Nodding Phil gripped the Knife tightly in his right hand and slashed his left palm, tilting Dan's head to open his mouth. He formed a fist with his left hand, letting as much blood as he could fall into Dan's mouth. Annabeth watched intently for at least two minutes before moving onto the next step. Pushing the water bottle towards Phil she instructed him to put seven drops of his blood into the concoction. Which he did obediently. 

"Now what you have to do is tilt his head as far back as possible so I can pour the antidote in, but the moment I do that, you need to get as far back as you can" She explained matter-o-factly 

"Why will he convulse again?" 

"No, you'll see, you get need to get back, get onto the bed. Thats probably the best place" she answered elusively, measuring out a capful of the liquid, "Last time you need to blindly trust me I swear" 

Nodding Phil tilted Dan's head back as far as he could before worrying about damaging his neck. Dan's mouth was now positioned like that of a CPR dummy, which he supposed was sort of the the point but it was unnerving to him in such a state. Expecting another countdown, Phil was taken by surprise at Annabeth suddenly pouring the cap of liquid into Dan's mouth and yelling "NOW" at the top of her lungs. Phil scrambled to get onto the bed just in time to witness Dan's wound glow so brightly the light could be seen gleaming through the t-shirt bandage and causing his chest to lift to the ceiling almost to the point of floating. Suddenly the light dissipated, concluding with a massive pulse of energy coming from the injury, reaching everything in the room, as if a gust of wind could be made of light. So strong was the surge Annabeth, who had stayed near Dan to ensure he swallowed the potion was thrown against the wall. Looking up from her crumpled landing position, she met Phil's eyes for the first time since the owl incident. For a moment the two jus stared each other, Dan lying peacefully on the floor between the two. 

Phil took a deep breath, "What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On."


	14. Scars Come Out

Annabeth curled up on the floor where she had fallen, knees pressed into her chest and her forehead resting on her knees. Phil could hear each shuddery breath she took, but no answers. She looked different in someway he couldn't quite discern. Dan had once played a prank on him by moving everything on his desk an inch to the left, looking at Annabeth reminded Phil of that feeling, as if something was ever so slightly off. She shuffled the arrangement of her arms a bit, so her left hand rested on her right elbow. Revealing a faded, light red scar between her thumb and her index finger. It looked old but still easily noticeable, except Phil had never seen it before, how was that possible. Suddenly it became obvious what had changed, her entire body was covered in scars of all shape and sizes, some thin and raised, others round and indented and everything in between. A few he imagined were from wild animals, judging by the bite and claw marks, the rest he had no idea, but there were a lot of them. It wasn't possible he could have missed them, and yet there was no possible way they had just appeared.

"How'd you hurt your hand?" It seemed a good enough question to ask first, he'd seen so many impossible things today he'd lost count, so why not start at the most recent.

Annabeth raised her head examining the mark on her hand in depth, judging by how the day was progressing Phil was half expecting her to say she had no clue. But her face told him otherwise, she looked to be reminiscing over the marking rather than pondering it.

Forming a fist to conceal it, she responded "Knife fight, I didn't calculate the trajectory of my opponents blade correctly in order to block it, instead it sliced through my hand"

This answer was by no means enough to satisfy Phil's curiosity, he stared at the grey-eyed girl expectantly awaiting further explanation

Raising her glance from her hand to Phil, Annabeth leaned her head against the cold grey wall, "you can see all of them can't you?"

Phil merely nodded "why weren't they there until now"

"They were always there, you just couldn't see them before" turning her head towards him she sighed deeply. "I can tell you everything if you want. Answer any questions you may have, but if I do you can't back out. Right now things can go back to normal for you, they won't if you hear what I've got to say, that is if you even believe me"

What the fuck was she talking about? After everything that had transpired over the past hour Phil wasn't even sure normal existed anymore, and if it did he sure as hell wouldn't be able to return to it any time soon. Whatever allusion of normalcy had clouded his eyes was gone, and now he wanted to see the whole picture, "I want to know what's going on"

The girl twirled the strands of grey hair mixed with her blonde locks. "ever read any Greek mythology"

"Yeah I read the Iliead for uni"

"Well it's true, all of it. The Trojan war, Achilles, Homer, monsters and the gods" she took a deep breath, "especially the gods, they existed then and they exist now. Just like in the Iliead they interact with mortals, and sometimes they have kids with them. These kids, demigods if you will, they have power, power that attracts monsters to them."

Phil could hardly believe what he was hearing, Greek mythology was just that, myth. But Annabeth had no reason to lie to him, they were trapped in a tiny room with no escape. Her best friend was lying in the floor in front of her clinging to life, if ever there was a time to tell the truth it was now. The weight of her words began to sink in, children of Greek gods attract monsters, Annabeth had attracted monsters. He thought about how the owls had surrounded her, how her grey eyes seemed to darken when she was angry, how she always knew exactly what to say to fans to discourage or encourage them. Suddenly everything clicked, "you're the daughter of Athena"

It was Annabeth's turn to nod now, "One of many. Normally monsters are attracted to younger demigods ages thirteen to seventeen except for when we commit massive displays of power"

"But I still don't understand why I can see your scars now"

when I mixed dan's medicine I was sloppy and it burst you must have inhaled some particles of my blood, meaning you see what I see, monsters and scar, and weapons" 

"Why would you let out a massive amount of power that would put us all in danger"

"It was an accident, I swear!" She buried her face in her knees again but continued to speak, although more muffled, "those dogs you saw were hell hounds, they wanted me. Dan just got in the way"

He was angry now, the emotion built up in his chest like a pot ready to boil. Dan had put his life at stake for this demigod or whatever the title was and she thought of him as some toiling human, only getting in the way. "He nearly died to keep you safe! It wasn't an accident that dog attacked him" 

Annabeth emitted a sob from her covered face, "I'm so sorry Phil, I didn't mean for any of this to happen. Athena children aren't even supposed to be able to produce physical manifestations of power, I it never occurred to me that would be a risk." She let out another louder, more desperate sob "But Percy died and and-". Breaking out in tears the half-blood was unable to finish her sentence.

"Wait, back up. When did Percy die?" Phil was well aware of Annabeth's boyfriend and exactly how much he meant to her, and that the two shared an unbreakable bond. If he was dead than so was her lifeline, but more scary was the fact Percy had always been a restraint for Annabeth. If you looked her properly in her eyes you would see a fleeting glimpse of a deep rage at the world, which was contained only by the fact that he was in existence. The idea that that rage would no longer be constrained was terrifying.

"Twenty minutes ago, maybe" she said meekly "I don't really remember the details, Piper just called and told me what happened, after that I don't have any memory till you woke me up"

Phil crossed the room and sat down next to the cry girl putting his arm around her and pulling her close, "I'm so sorry Annabeth, I can't imagine how hard this must be" 

Shaking her head, She pulled away, wiping the tears from her eyes as she did so, "we can mourn the dead later, right now we need to focus on keeping everyone else alive". Getting up from her position on the ground she walked over to the computer from the nineties, "this place is one of a handful of demigod havens built around Europe in the 90's where half-bloods could stay without fear of monsters till Camp would retrieve them. They've been out of commission for years due to the difficultly it took to maintain them"

A ray of hope appeared in Phil's, "do they still work? Could they protect us from the Hell Hounds?"

Attempting to turn the computer on Annabeth gave him a grim look, "Probably not, Like I said these were hard to maintain, what with all the magic required to make them monster proof. Some of the charms might still be working but with so much strain placed on them they won't hold for more than six hours at the most." 

She smacked the side of the computer with her hand "WORK DAMNIT" 

"Whats wrong?" Phil had had his fair share of computer problems in his life but had never found violence to solve the problem. 

"This computer if it worked would have a direct line of communication to Camp Half-Blood, We could call for help. Not that they'd reach us in time"

Choosing to ignore the last part of the statement Phil joined her in front of the monitor, "here let me have at it, I'm pretty good with 90's tech". He still had more questions than he did answers, hell what even was this camp half-blood even was. But now was not the time to bring that up, right now Annabeth was the only person who could get them out of this, and he fully intended to help her in anyway possible.

Annabeth gave up her chair and watch over his shoulder arms crossed, looking like a commander about to commence a battle.


	15. Meanwhile at Camp Halfblood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this hasn't been updated recently, uni is kinda overwhelming. Also this chapter is kinda sucky filler I'm using to get to point A to point B, sorry I couldn't go more in depth but I have lecture tomorrow. If anyone is reading this or invested in it, yes I'm still here, and yes I have a plan for this story, also hi.

"I'm calling it" Will Solace checked the son of Poseidon's pulse one last time, looking at his watch as he did so, "time of death, 2:36 pm" 

Piper, watched the iris message evaporate and paced across to the cot where Percy lay bloodied and motionless, her eyes eye exhausted from crying "No, not yet. He has to have more time, double check"

"no point" Nico sat curled up in a visitor's chair, looking as if he was trying to melt into it "he has maybe three minutes till the point of no return. There isn't a doctor in the world who could save him now"

It was then Will broke out into tears "I should have done more. Maybe if I had sealed the wound in his abdomen first..."

Nico immediately ran to his side enveloping him in a comforting hug "He still be dead, there was nothing you could've done to change the outcome" 

Will leaned into Nico still sobbing, then as if changing gears completely sat straight up "wait what was that you said about three minutes?"

Nico shook his head "its not worth mentioning"

"No tell me"

Sighing Nico plunked back in his chair "after your soul leaves your body theres three minutes of paper work and wait lines before your taken to you final destination in hades, once you arrive there you can never come back"

"Wait" Piper turned her attention from Percy's dead body to Nico, "so your saying we still have three minutes to bring him back"

Nico shook his head "only theoretically, its never been done, the body would have to be in perfect working order and you'd need someway to call his soul back from hades"

"Piper can you do that? Charmspeak Percy into coming back?" Suddenly Will seemed full of energy, a small glint of hope in his eyes

"Maybe, I've never tried, I brought Festus to life once but bringing someone back from the dead is whole other story. Besides his body is by no means ready to be inhabited"

"let me take care of that, just start talking" Will grabbed a huge bottle of ambrosia on the floor next to him, "fight's not over yet"


	16. Wake Up Call

Pain. was the first thought that came into Percy's head, everything was pain. He had only felt this crappy a few times in his life, all of which were during battles. Crap was he is battle? he tried to sit up but all his muscles failed, making him collapse onto his back. Lord what had happened to him? As he opened his eyes his sight was obstructed by fog. Paralyzed and blind he began to panic.

"calm" a voice instructed him. most likely Piper's judging by his overwhelming compulsion to obey. Piper was with him, good they weren't in battle. Captured maybe?

"you're in the sick bay, no one is under attack. you were in a car crash is all" as Piper continued with her explanation Percy's vision began to clear. Will and Nico sat on the right side of his bed, Will was squeezing a IV bag of ambrosia into the Percy's arm as Nico slept curled up beside him. Piper sat on the left, everyone looked as though they had been crying. As he Listened to the daughter of Aphrodite he understood why. He had died, it was a miracle they'd brought him back.

"Annabeth" Percy struggled to get out the words, his chest feeling as though a million rocks sat upon it "does she know..."

"That you died? Yeah I called her" Piper interrupted attempting too save him the effort of speaking any further

Percy began to shake his head frantically, Annabeth was one of the most powerful demigods he had ever known. It didn't worry him that his girlfriend didn't know he was dead, what worried him was that she didn't know he was alive. He'd seen Annabeth in pain before, and it terrified him. She would travel to the ends of the earth seeking a unobtainable revenge for his supposed death if not told soon. "Not dead" Percy gasped for air, "Alive"

"Crap" Piper immediately understood the implication, a panicked expression coming over her face. "Iris barely granted me that one message, no way she would do it again"

Will looked up from his medical equipment, "are you telling me we have no way to convey to Annabeth that Percy's alive?" 

As if on cue Grover came hurtling into the sick bay at top speed "guys" he briefly stopped to catch his breath, "that weird old computer is the Hephestus cabin just lit up."

"And we care about this why?" Woken up by the commotion of Grover's entrance, Nico began to uncurl himself from his sleeping position, not unlike a hamster waking up from a nap.

"because it had a recording of Annabeth on it" the Satyr responded sharply. 

At the mention of Annabeth's name Percy attempted to sit upright, failing partially due to his weakness and partially due to Piper pushing him back down unto the cot.

"How? From when? What did it say?" Piper pressed Grover for answers, sparing Percy the struggle.

"I don't know and I don't know. I speak forest not computer, sorry. But I'd guess judging by her appearance it was made fairly recently." The leader of the Cloven Elders shuffled his hooves clearly nervous about what he was about to say next. "I do remember what she said though. The computer was a little damaged the message was broken up in some areas but she said she needed help. That she was being chased by hellhounds and was trapped under baker street I think. After that it started really breaking up, she said something about injured mortals, too many monsters to fight, only four hours. The rest I couldn't make out. 

Piping up so naturally it seemed to be part of Grovers message Nico began to speak. "She's in the demigod sanctuary under the Sherlock Holmes museum, its on baker street and the only place anywhere in London that has one of those communication machines" The whole room turned their eyes towards Nico in bewilderment and admiration. uncomfortable from the attention he was receiving Nico attempted to explain his seemingly random knowledge "I was trapped in a casino for 70 years, ok? I liked to read about what I missed" 

"Well if theres some sort of four hour time limit, I hate to say it but we'll never make it to her" Will pointed out "there's nothing we can do" 

"Me" Percy gathered as much strength as he could, bracing himself for his next sentence, "If I shadow travel on Ms. O'Leary and Nico gives us a boost, I could make it in time" 

Piper looked down upon Percy sympathetically. "Percy I know how much Annabeth means to you, frankly she means a lot to all of us. But you're in no state to travel"

"Well not at this exact moment he's not no" Will said, seemingly implying an option no one else had considered "But if I increase treatment speed in combination with some help from the Hecate cabin I could probably get Percy back on his feet in two and a half hours or so" 

Percy responded faster than Piper could shut will down, "do it"

Meeting Percy's eyes Will continued. "It's not that simple, if I do the strength would only last for a few hours at best. Once it runs out you'd be near comatose for about a week" 

"I don't care" Percy persisted, all he cared about was that Annabeth was safe. For her to be safe and know he was alive was all he wanted, everything else took second place to that. "Do it" 

Nico took Will's hand reassuringly "It is his choice you know, and I'm down to help with the shadow travel" 

Sighing Will nodded "Alright then, someone better call the head of the Hecate Cabin"


	17. AHHHHHHHH THANKS SO MUCH

OMGOSH so this story just got over 100 hits and I'm super excited but I don't have a chapter ready to post in celebration so instead I'm just gonna write some fun facts and insider details for y'all. 

\- I'm an almost 19 year old girl from Canada 

\- I started writing this when I couldn't sleep at night because my ADHD meds kept me up at night 

\- Early on in the fic theres a comparison to a white van driving around Detroit, I actually did drive around Detroit in a white van for a week with my friends 

\- the last chapter mentioned a hamster because I wanted to scare my friend who read the hat fic (I haven't read it)

\- I read very little fanfic and this is the first one I've ever written 

\- my tumblr is @myceasefirefurious if you wanna follow me and ask questions (idk why you'd wanna ask me questions I'm just really excited people are reading this and would like to know who those people are)

-my friend read this to make fun of me but got so into it he actually started a tumblr fan page that no one follows thats @cultofceasefire if you wanna make them feel better about their self imposed job as my super fan 

-I don't know if I'm gonna keep writing after this, I've been thinking about writing some fanfic about Aristophane's play the birds 

-the dialog in the emo chapter is essentially my type of humour, just inserting song title into everything 

-I am actually emo (though I don't look it)

-Cease_fire is a play of my nickname Cease (for Cece) and the fact I want to work in international relations an help enforce cease fire agreements

so yeah thank you to everyone who read this, you are all super cool! I am working on a new chapter that will hopefully get published by the end of October. I hope everyone has a great day 

-Cece


	18. To the end

"Did that work?" Annabeth finished recording her distress call go up from in front of the computer. She had more recorded it for Phil's piece of mind than anything else. Even if Camp Half-Blood got the message the chances they would be able to take action on it were less than slim. They were all going to be mauled to death by hell hounds in a tiny cell, not a very dramatic exit for the saviour of the Athena parthenon. 

"Hopefully, it might be a little fuzzy but I think they got it" he looked over to Dan, who was still lying palely on the floor, "will he be ok?" 

Walking over Annabeth examined the motionless youtuber "not sure yet, he could definitely be worse though. Treating humans with ambrosia is a dangerous game, if he wakes up in the next six hours he'll be in the clear" Again she was sugar coating, Dan still might make it but she hadn't told Phil just how serious his condition was. They had acted too slowly in administering the medication, the poison had made it pretty far into Dan's system. It would be impressive if he recovered from this, still possible but impressive nonetheless.

"You said in that recording we only had four hours at the most until those dogs break through, what if that happens and he hasn't woken up yet?" He sounded angry, and who could blame him? Annabeth had just told him the love of his life was still on the verge of death by poison and if that didn't get Dan the hell-hounds outside would. 

Sitting on the bed Annabeth closed her eyes, covering her face with her hands and let her strategic mind take over. six hours for Dan to wake up, four till hundreds of hell-hounds burst through the walls, and minimal chances of Camp Half-Blood saving her ass. She was the only one at all qualified to handle the situation and she was fresh out of ideas. What would Percy do? she thought to herself, even thinking his name caused her pain. Percy. Dead. Car Crash... No, no she couldn't think about that right now she needed to stay in the moment. What would Percy do right now in this exact situation? Charge. She almost smiled remembering all the times her boyfriend had been an idiot, running straight into danger. Was that an option right now? Flat out attacking the monsters? It would be guaranteed suicide but might buy Dan and Phil a few more hours. Going out in a blaze of glory to save her friends and meet Percy in eslyuim? Not a bad way to die. 

Getting up she pulled on the handle of the unopened drawer under the bed. Which she correctly assumed was the arsenal containing a dozen different celestial bronze blades. Quickly tucking two daggers in the back of her jeans, she noticed in the corner of the drawer was a handgun. It looked modified, probably by a Hephaestus kid, to contain celestial bronze bullets. Annabeth considered taking it for a moment but decided against it. She wasn't super familiar with demigod firearms. Moving over to the other drawer she filled her pockets with vials of ambrosia, in anticipation of any injuries she was about to endure. 

Phil had moved to sit in the middle of the room next to Dan, watching Annabeth prep for battle while holding his boyfriend's unresponsive hand. "What are you doing?" he asked, "you're not thinking of going out there are you?"

Failing in her attempt to locate armour of any sort Annabeth attempted to ignored Phil, crossing the room to retrieve her bone sword. 

"Hey!" Phil stood up blocking her way, "Annabeth, Tell me you not doing what I think you're doing"

Sighing Annabeth met his eyes "Look, I started this its my responsibility. I should be able to buy you guys a few more hours, that way you stand a chance of being rescued. Not a great one but better than what you have now."

"No way, fighting those things is a death sentence" He didn't need to point it out, Annabeth could tell he already knew she'd accepted that fact. "Stay here with Dan and I, we'll find another way"

She was getting angry now, she was the strategist, she was the experienced one why couldn't he just trust her "This is the only way Phil, especially for Dan. You have to let me do this. Don't make it harder." Pushing past him towards her sword so he wouldn't see her eyes welling up.

Phil then proceeded to say exactly the opposite of what she wanted him to say "Well then I'm coming with you" 

Pivoting on her heels to face the man again Annabeth's voice rose with her alarm "What! No way in Hades! You're a mortal, with no mythological experience and no combat training whatsoever! You're insane if you think I'm letting you come with me"

"I wasn't asking for permission" 

"Still no, no fucking way! Even if you could actually fight, Dan needs you. You can't just leave him here, to wake up and discover both of us dead, it'll crush him. He deserves to keep one of us, and that person is you." As sappy as it sounded Annabeth genuinely believed what she was saying. Dan and Phil were two parts of a whole, neither could fully exist without the other, If there was ever a couple that proved the myth of globulars it was them.

"As much as I love Dan I don't care." Phil countered. "This isn't his call, its mine. Tell me honestly that having another person on the battlefield, even an untrained one, wouldn't buy him more time"

Annabeth didn't meet his eyes 

"Exactly, if his best chance of survival lies in walking out that door and fighting like hell, until we wind up there then I'm in. I don't care if he's not happy or that if he was here he would be begging me to stay. All I care about is that he lives, thats the most important thing." Phil took a deep breath, presumably to stop himself from crying. 

At that moment Annabeth understood, she would've done exactly the same if it was Percy lying there. Nodding, she went back over to the arsenal and grabbed the handgun, and corresponding clips. Holding it up she showed the weapon to Phil, "Know how to use one of these?"

Phil shook his head 

"Ok, this lever here turns the safety on and off, and pressing this button will eject the used clip. Once you turn the safety off you just point and shoot." Pointing out the different aspects of the weapon as she described it. "You willl stay behind me at all times, do not point it anywhere near me. Try to aim for the heads of the hell-hounds, thats probably you're best shot at taking one out." She handed Phil the gun "Only one of us has to die today and its not going to be you. Stay near the door, when you see me go down jump back through. Don't try and help me, don't keep fighting. You retreat when I fall and you don't come back out until someone comes to get you. Do I make myself clear?"

Phil nodded somberly "Perfectly"

"Well then I guess it's time we cut some bitches" Annabeth joked weakly, turning to face the door

"Hey Annabeth" Phil grabbed her arm before she could pass through the barrier

"yeah"

"I love you, and so does Dan. You know that right?"

"I know, I love you both too" Slowly she moved her arm out of Phil's grip, "on my mark"

Annabeth paused for a second to take in the last moment of calm she would ever experience, taking a deep breath she braced herself "Okay go"

And with the blonde warrior and the raven haired man charged through the door. Leaving only the unconscious pale youtuber behind.


	19. Ready, Aim, Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys sorry its been so long. likeI said I will continue to update this it will just take time. I've never written a fight scene before so hopefully this is ok

Phil didn't know what he was expecting to see when he ran through the door but whatever it was the reality was a thousand times worse. He and Annabeth were backed against the wall they had just appeared out of, by what he estimate to be 500 hellhounds, could be more though, he was just going off his initial reaction. Annabeth left him no time for a recount however, not even hesitating at the sight of her foes. Instead she had chosen to charge straight ahead, plunging her sword deep into the chest of the nearest beast which evaporated into dust around her.

Something about watching this encounter jolted Phil back into reality, his understanding of it anyway, reality seemed to be changing quite rapidly nowadays. Picking a dog at random, Phil attempted to aim his gun at it before realizing he'd left the safety on. Struggling to remember how to turn the safety off, he flicked the switch and returned to point his gun at the hell hound before pulling the trigger. 

Phil, hadn't anticipated the kick back from the gun which pushed him backwards, knocking him harshly against the wall behind him almost causing him to collapse as pain reverberated up his spine. Regaining his balance he turned his attention back to the battle, the bullet had lodged itself in the canine's shoulder, causing it to whimper and back up. Not the result Phil had wanted but for his first time firing a gun he was willing to take it. 

A blonde blur flashed across his vision as the previously injured hellhound turned to ash. Annabeth again, Phil took a moment to observe her before attempting his hand at another shot. She moved in a methodical near choreographed fashion, as if each swing of her blade had been rehearsed hundreds of times. More fascinating to watch however was her calm demeanour as chaos unfolded around her, in the time Phil had known Annabeth he had never seen her look as relaxed as she did now. Suddenly Annabeth fully made sense to him, as long as she could protect herself while fighting, it was the moments in-between fights, the moments of peace where she was unable to predict the next threat that scared her. 

This realization consumed him with fear. What was he doing here? He wasn't a seasoned fighter like Annabet. Dan could be dying alone at this very moment because Phil was making a fool of himself trying to win a fight he wasn't qualified to enter. He should retreat, the door wasn't far from where he'd been thrown into the wall, if he could just find it...

"PHIL" Annabeth yelled tensely, "CAN YOU GET BACK TO SHOOTING THINGS PLEASE" 

No. He couldn't retreat, Annabeth was giving up her life so that Dan could live, it was the least he could do to attempt to assist her. Taking a deep breath Phil raised his weapon once again with, if Annabeth could be calm in this situation so could he, releasing his breath he began to shoot again


	20. Another Troubled Soul

It had been hours, at least Phil thought so, the fight had been going on so long the youtuber had lost track of time. How many hours had it been? One? Two? Four even? For every hellhound that was defeated another seem to appear in its place, the number of beasts was undeniably reducing but painstakinlgy slowly. Thankfully he'd managed to remain unharmed during the conflict, albeit covered in dust.

The same couldn't be said of Annabeth however, her tattered clothes failed at covering the deep scratches which bleed into them. Her energy was noticeably beginning to drain as well, her movements were becoming more sluggish and as a result less effective. The demi-god had lost her sword earlier in battle, though when exactly Phil couldn't recall, instead she was wielding a bronze dagger with such precision one might assume it had been her main weapon all along. 

He himself was out of bullets, despite the abundance of hellhounds he'd still managed to miss more than he'd hit. The battle had been a losing one from the start, That Phil had known but the reality of that was only now becoming visible. The youtuber didn't want to leave his accomplice unassisted and alone to die, he needed to find another way to fight.

As if on cue one of dogs pounced in Annabeth's direction, revealing the warrior's long abandoned bone sword lying in the corner of the other side room. Taking the opportunity to rearm himself Phil darted toward the weapon in the hopes of retrieving it. Despite desperately attempting to dodge between hellhounds, the former radio host only got about fifteen feet before one of the beasts bounded towards him. The dog gave Phil barely enough time to let out a mangled scream before the animal scooped him into its massive jaws and proceeded to run around frantically as if it had just got a new toy. 

Thankfully the Hound hadn't bitted down hard enough to draw blood but the pressure of its jaws was still excessively painful. Phil lay horizontally within its mouth his head still hanging out from between its teeth staring down at the ever moving floor as the beast continued to enthusiastically run. Suddenly his captor turned to dust, leaving Phil in free fall. 

Next thing he new he was lying facedown on the floor, his ribs feeling as if each was being removed with a dull razor. He must've blacked-out temporarily as all the hell hounds had ceased attacking and now all stood howling. Turing his head to the left he could see Annabeth lying on her back pinned down by the front paw of one of the massive canines, its head close enough to her own that her hair ruffled with the animals every breath, as it eyed her neck. It dawned on Phil the dogs cohorts were howling to cheer it on, to celebrate the murder of a child of Athena. 

Annabeth turned her head in Phil's direction, making direct ye contact with the man, her face was incredibly peaceful inspire of her imposing death as if she had been expecting this moment for years rather than hours. Suddenly the demi god broke her peaceful appearance to contort her mouth into yelling "PHIL RUN" before turning back to face her fate. 

Taking her advice Phil ignored the excruciating pain in his ribcage, to push himself off the ground and break into a sprint towards the door of the safe room. Pausing only when he arrived to look back, as if out of some morbid desire to watch his friend's final moments.

It was at that moment a miracle occured

Another hellhound appeared next to the one Annabeth had fallen victim to, distinguishing this one from the others was the young man who seemed to be riding it wielding a massive bronze sword with black hair not unlike Phil's own. While atop the beast the man swiped his sword in the direction of the other hellhound, taking its head clean off. 

As the dust fell the man slide off his hound, just in time to offer Annabeth a hand off the floor. In a very tonally inappropriate voice for the situation he smirked, "Sorry I'm late, traffic was worse than tartarus"

Annabeth stared at him blank faced for a moment before proceeding to grab the man and kiss him deeply, something he seemed to reciprocate quite willingly before she quickly pulled away, pulling another dagger out of the back of her jeans, "fight now, talk later"

The black haired boy nodded "agreed" 

Phil watched in amazement as the two stood back to back attacking hell hounds right, left and center. The arrival of the new party member had seemed to reinvigorate Annabeth, who was fighting with vigour once again. The addition of the strangely friendly hellhound also greatly reduced the difficulty of the fight, as it was able to take out five hellhound for every one Annabeth and who Phil assumed was her boyfriend could. It wasn't long after that that they stood in a storeroom void of all hellhounds accept the one the man had rode in on. 

Making eye contact with Annabeth Phil opened his mouth to speak although he was unsure of what to say. Thankfully Annabeth stopped him before he could speak, "Percy" she stated bluntly pointing at the man before gesturing at the hellhound only to remark "ms. O'leary". Walking over to the safehouse door she turned to Phil once again "Help me get dan onto Ms. O'leary, I have much better first aid supplies at home"

Speechless and unsure what to think Phil did as she said, deciding not to bother asking how Percy Jackson had returned from the dead.


	21. It comes back to you

Dan had not thought it possible for the human body to experience as much pain as he was currently in. It consumed him completely and totally, so much so his other senses seemed disconnected and distant from his own mind, as if his entire psyche and curled up into a dark corner and refused to come out. He could hear people taking around him but his pain made it seem as if they were coming from another dimension and although he could make out what they where saying his brain was to overwhelmed by suffering to give meaning to the words. Suddenly pain shot through his chest like a bullet ripping through the nerve center, causing him to instantly groan in anguish. At this the voices ceased speaking, instead replaced by a commotion seemingly cause by some sort of shuffle.

"Stay back" a female voice yelled, Closer to him than before maybe? Dan was in too much pain to tell or care. Someone put their hand on his shoulder as if they were leaning over him, presumably the woman who was now addressing other people in the room "he needs pain meds, mortal ones, strongest you have. Something to make him sleep as well." Again there was a shuffling noise as the woman redirected her attention to him "ok Dan I just need to stay awake a little longer ok? just breath, please just breath". 

The sounds of someone returning filled Dan's mentally stuffed ears. The woman continued to instruct Dan, asking him to open his mouth so she could give him water and pills, which he did obediently, unable to form any kind of practical independent thought other than the word "pain" over and over. Once done the woman's voice took on a more comforting tone "alright Dan so you're just gonna go back to sleep for a little bit. But when you wake up I promise you'll feel better ok?" 

Dan didn't even catch the end of her sentence as he had already started to step back into darkness. 

***

Dan's pain hadn't vanished when he woke up the second time but it was greatly reduced, enough so that he could bring himself to open his eyes. He was lying on the couch in his living room, shirtless with wad of gaze stuck to his chest with medical tape. The living room was barely recognizable and looked more live a war zone than the living space, large wooden bookshelves lay on the floor in splinters, randomly thrown books and looses pages covered every inch of the floor mixed with shards of broken plastic chairs and glass presumably from the large glass window which overlooked london. Blood stained many of the books covering the floor, the sight of which sent Dan into a panicked concern for his friends. Was it their blood on the floor? Did they survive whatever the hell had happened?

Desperately scanning the room he laid eyes on Annabeth first. She was laying asleep on the lap of a man who would have almost looked similar to Phil, with whom he shared straight black hair and a tall build, the main difference was this man was significantly more muscular than Dan's boyfriend. The two were asleep in a heavily torn up armchair, with stuffing protruding from every angle. Dan maintained his focus on Annabeth however, her clothes were shredded and bloodied. Through the holes in her t-shirt dan could see bright red scratch marks, so new scabs had barely begun to form around them. What was perhaps more disturbing however were the older scars which he had never seen. On the right side of her forehead was a large scar concaved deep into her skin, it was a slightly lighter tone from the rest of her face but still very visible. There was no way he couldn't have previously noticed it.

Tearing his eyes from the embattled looking architecture student, Dan began to search for Phil. Who he found sleeping so close to the couch he was nearly out of Dan's field of vision. He also looked to be pretty beat up, though not nearly as bad as Annabeth. His neck and arms were covered up and down with dark bruises, but otherwise didn't look like he had any other injuries.

What the hell happened? Dan stretched his memory to before everything had gone black. all he could see was parliaments of owls, german shepherds and flying books, none of which made sense. Convinced either his injury or medication had messed with his head the youtuber abandon the prospect of attempting to recall the events that had previously occurred. He would need to ask someone else.

Slowly and painfully he inched his body to the edge of the couch letting one arm drop of the side to so it was just touching Phil's shoulder. Bracing for the pain Dan transferred his weight to his hanging arms just enough to nudge his boyfriend who woke up near instantaneously. 

"DAN!" suddenly he was eloped in a giant, painful hug as Phil began to cry into his shoulder. "I thought you were dead and then I thought Annabeth was going to die and I'm so glad you're back cause I honestly have no idea what to do now that its over" Phil expressed between sobs "I just love you so much"

The sound of Phil's crying, cause Annabeth to also wake up and remove herself delicately from the lap of the man under her so as not to walk him up before limping over to the youtubers. "Phil you're going to hurt him, pressing on the injury like that, what are you thinking" sternly she pulled Phil off of Dan's chest, and then quickly turned back to her injured patient "how are you feeling?"

Dan could've cared less about his physical health at that point, he just wanted to understand his surroundings but to humour his clearly concerned friend he replied "like I got eaten by a wood chipper" after this be extremely brief and vague description the brown haired man turned his attention back to what seemed to him to be the more important topic "What on earth happened?" 

Phil and Annabeth exchanged knowing glances, Annabeth gave a subtle nod seemingly giving permission for something. Phil crouched down next to Dan, winching briefly from his injuries. "ok bear I'll tell you, but first you have tp promise to believe me.


	22. The End

Hey guys, so I decided I'm gonna end this work at chapter 21, if you have any questions about what happens to the characters please feel free to ask in the comments. Don't worry though I'm not retiring I have a new story that I'm working on. To anyone who read this and liked it thank you so so so much, especially people who left kudos or comments I really appreciated them. Stay tune for more material coming soon and in bulk!!! So long and Goodnight <3


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